HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  STUDIES 

I 

THE  COMPOSITION  AND 
DATE  OF  ACTS 


BY 


CHARLES  CUTLER  TORREY 

PROFESSOR  OF  THE  SEMITIC  LANGUAGES 
IN  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


Issued  as  an  extra  number  of  the 
HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW,  1916 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1916 


0 

*?^t 
4 

"'       ^) 


HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  STUDIES 


HARVARD 
THEOLOGICAL  STUDIES 

EDITED  FOR  THE 

FACULTY  OF  DIVINITY 

IN 

HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 


BY 


GEORGE  F.  MOORE,  JAMES  H.  ROPES, 
KIRSOPP  LAKE 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:.  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 
OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1916 


HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  STUDIES 

I 

THE  COMPOSITION  AND 
DATE  OF  ACTS 

BY 

CHARLES  CUTLER  TORREY 


PROFESSOR  OF  THE  SEMITIC  LANGUAGES 
IN  YALE  UNIVERSITY 


CAMBRIDGE 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:   HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
1916 


COPYRIGHT,  1916 
HARVARD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

Issued  as  an  extra  number  of  the 
HARVARD  THEOLOGICAL  REVIEW,  1916 


THE 
COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  1-15 
§  i.  INTRODUCTORY 

THE  hypothesis  of  a  Semitic  source  (or  sources)  underlying  more  or 
less  of  the  first  half  of  Acts  has  commended  itself  to  a  few  scholars. 
Thus  Harnack,  Lukas  der  Arzt,  1906,  p.  84:  "  Es  spricht  Wichtiges 
dafiir,  dass  Lukas  in  der  ersten  Halfte  der  Acta  eine  aramaische 
Quelle  iibersetzt  und  benutzt  hat,  aber  schlagend  kann  die  Annahme 
nicht  widerlegt  werden,  dass  er  lediglich  auf  miindlichen  Mitteil- 
ungen  fusst.  Vollends  unsicher  ist  es,  welchen  Umfang  die  Quelle 
gehabt  hat  und  ob  es  iiberhaupt  eine  einzige  Quelle  gewesen  ist." 
Similarly  in  his  Apostelgeschichte,  1908,  pp.  138,  186.  Wendt,  Die 
Apostelgeschichte,  1913,  p.  16,  says:  "  Im  Anschluss  an  Nestle 
StKr  1896  S.  102  ff.  nimmt  [Blass]  die  Bearbeitung  einer  ara- 
maischen  Quelle  im  ersten  Teile  der  Apostelgeschichte  an.  Die  in 
diesem  ersten  Teile  haufiger  als  im  zweiten  vorliegenden  Aramais- 
men  werden  von  ihm  als  Beweis  hierfiir  betrachtet  (Evang.  sec. 
Luc.,  1897,  p.  vi,  xxi,  ss.)."  See  also  Blass'  very  meager  statement 
in  his  Philology  of  the  Gospels  (1898),  141,  193  f.,  201,  of  his  some- 
what hastily  conceived  theory  according  to  which  Luke  followed  an 
Aramaic  source  in  the  first  twelve  chapters  of  Acts. 

But  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  no  one  has  ever  attempted  to  point  out 
specifically  Aramaic  locutions  in  Acts.  Nor  has  the  search  for 
Semitisms,  of  whatever  sort,  hitherto  resulted  in  any  fruitful  dis- 
covery. A  few  doubtful  examples  have  been  adduced  in  support  of 
still  more  doubtful  conclusions;  there  has  been  no  effort  to  collect 
and  examine  the  material  of  this  nature.  Nestle's  observations, 


2092604 


4  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

referred  to  above,1  were  concerned  only  with  two  variant  readings 
(2,  47  and  3,  14)  in  Codex  Bezae,  and  have  no  bearing  whatever  on 
the  question  of  the  original  language  of  this  part  of  Acts,  as  I  hope 
to  have  opportunity  to  show  elsewhere.2  Wellhausen  in  his  "  Noten 
zur  Apostelgeschichte  "  (Nachrichten  von  der  K.  Gesellsch.  der  Wiss. 
zu  Gb'ttingen,  1907, 1-21)  takes  no  notice  of  Semitisms  or  of  possible 
Semitic  sources;  in  his  "  Kritische  Analyse  der  Apostelgeschichte  " 
(Abhandlungen  der  K.  Gesellsch.  der  Wiss.  zu  Gottingen,  1914,  1-56) 
he  considers  the  possibility  of  translation  in  only  one  passage,  namely 
2,  23  f.,  and  there  in  a  wholly  non-committal  way.  Among  English 
and  American  scholars  the  question  of  Semitic  sources  in  Acts  seems 
to  have  aroused  even  less  interest  than  among  the  Germans. 
Moffatt,  Introduction,  1911,  p.  290,  says  (citing  Harnack):  "  There 
is  fair  ground  for  conjecturing  that  Luke  used  and  translated  an 
Aramaic  source  ";  and  Milligan,  The  New  Testament  Documents, 
1913,  p.  163,  refers  to  the  hypothesis  as  a  possible  one. 

Now  Aramaic  is  not  an  unknown  language,  and  we  have  consider- 
able familiarity  with  the  principles  and  methods  of  those  who 
rendered  Semitic  documents  into  Greek  at  the  beginning  of  the 
present  era.  The  question,  too,  is  one  of  far-reaching  importance. 
In  a  writing  of  the  character  and  extent  of  the  first  half  of  Acts  it 
would  ordinarily  be  possible  to  determine  whether  the  Greek  is  a 
translation,  and  if  so,  from  what  language  the  version  was  made. 
In  the  present  case,  by  good  fortune,  the  material  at  hand  for  the 
demonstration  is  more  than  usually  satisfactory.  I  am  confident 
that  those  who  examine  the  evidence  carefully  will  find  it  conclusive. 

§  2.  THE  LANGUAGE  OF  THE  FIRST  HALF  OF  ACTS 

The  first  half  of  the  Book  of  Acts  is  concerned  primarily  with  the 
church  in  Jerusalem,  viewed  as  the  center  from  which  great  evangel- 
izing forces  went  out  into  the  world.  The  background  of  the  narra- 

1  They  were  first  published  in  English  in  The  Expositor,  1895,  pp.  235-239;  then, 
with  the  title  "  Einige  Beobachtungen  zum  Codex  Beza,"  in  the  Theol.  Studien  u. 
Kritiken,  1.  c. 

*  It  should  be  added  that  Nestle's  own  conclusion  as  to  the  original  language  indi- 
cated was  that  it  was  more  likely  Hebrew  than  Aramaic  (Expositor,  I.  c.,  p.  238) ;  see 
however  his  Philologica  Sacra,  1896,  p.  55,  where  he  refuses  to  express  an  opinion. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  5 

tive  is  obviously  Judean.  It  is  antecedently  probable  that  the 
earliest  documents  of  this  Jewish  Christian  community  would  have 
been  written  in  Aramaic,  the  vernacular.  We  also  have  excellent 
reason  for  believing  that  Luke,1  the  compiler  of  the  two  histories, 
was  one  who  made  special  search  for  Semitic  documents,  as  the 
primitive  and  authentic  sources,  in  order  to  render  them  into  Greek. 
I  think  I  may  claim,  without  undue  presumption,  that  the  whole 
question  of  Semitic  sources  in  Acts  has  entered  a  new  phase  since 
my  argument,  in  the  article  "  The  Translations  made  from  the 
Original  Aramaic  Gospels,"  contributed  to  Studies  in  the  History  of 
Religions  Presented  to  Crawford  Howell  Toy  (New  York,  Macmillan 
Co.,  1912,  pp.  269-317),  that  the  compiler  of  the  Third  Gospel  was 
an  accomplished  translator  of  both  Hebrew  and  Aramaic.2  We 
should  therefore  surmise,  at  the  outset,  that  the  very  noticeable 
Semitic  coloring  of  the  first  part  of  the  book,  remarked  by  all  com- 
mentators, is  simply  due  to  translation. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  argue  that  the  Greek  of  Acts  is  not  homo- 
geneous; it  may  be  well,  however,  to  review  here  the  main  facts 
touching  the  question  of  translation.  For  the  first  fifteen  chapters, 
the  language  is  distinctly  translation- Greek;  in  the  remaining  chap- 
ters, on  the  contrary,  the  idiom  is  not  Semitic,  and  there  is  no  evi- 
dence that  we  are  dealing  with  a  version.  The  whole  book,  however, 
shows  unmistakable  uniformity  of  vocabulary  and  phraseology,  so 
that  it  is  obvious  (to  him  who  recognizes  the  Semitic  source)  that 
the  author  of  16-28  was  the  translator  of  1-15.  Many  have  re- 
marked that  the  most  strongly  "  Hebraizing  "  chapters  are  those 
at  the  beginning  of  the  book.  The  reason  for  this  appearance  is  the 
fact  that  the  opening  chapters  are  so  largely  made  up  of  speeches 
composed  in  high  style,  along  with  quotations  from  the  Old  Testa- 

1  The  identification  of  the  author  of  the  Third  Gospel  and  Acts  with  Luke,  the  com- 
panion of  Paul,  is  not  essential  to  the  present  argument.  I  will,  however,  record  here 
my  opinion  that  the  church  tradition  is  right,  and  that  Luke  the  compiler  was  also 
the  author  of  the  "  We-document." 

*  The  article  was  not  reviewed  or  noticed  in  print,  so  far  as  I  am  aware,  but  the 
many  letters  which  I  received  lead  me  to  think  that  the  demonstration  was  generally 
accepted  by  those  who  read  it.  Most  of  the  letters  expressly  approved  the  argument 
derived  from  Luke  i,  39,  in  particular,  and  no  one  of  my  correspondents  raised  objection 
to  it. 


6  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

ment.  The  case  is  exactly  parallel  to  that  of  the  first  two  chapters 
of  Luke's  Gospel.  On  the  other  hand,  in  such  chapters  as  Acts  13- 
15,  where  the  events  narrated  are  comparatively  recent  and  widely 
familiar,  and  the  language  therefore  is  that  of  every-day  life,  the 
rendering  sounds  somewhat  more  free.  But  even  in  the  chapters  of 
this  latter  class  the  translation  is  found  on  examination  to  be  truly 
close;  the  Greek  idiom  never  strays  far  from  the  Aramaic,  while 
occasional  telltale  phrases  point  to  the  underlying  language.  These 
indications  of  a  translated  Semitic  source,  it  may  be  added,  are 
present  in  every  part  of  the  first  half  of  the  book.  There  are  no 
passages  in  which  the  language  can  be  said  to  make  it  probable  that 
Luke  is  composing  his  own  Greek.  It  is  a  striking  fact  (which  will 
be  considered  more  fully  below)  that  in  the  very  beginning  of  the 
first  chapter  the  evidence  from  the  material  content  combines  with 
that  afforded  by  the  language  in  such  a  way  as  to  make  it  plain 
that  Luke  is  following  a  written  source  so  closely,  and  with  such 
self-restraint,  that  he  does  not  even  allow  himself  space  for  an  intro- 
ductory sentence  of  his  own.  This,  again,  is  altogether  characteristic 
of  the  author  of  the  Third  Gospel. 

Throughout  chapters  1-15  we  are  constantly  meeting  such 
Semitisms  as  the  following:1  i,  i  7;p£aro  iroieiv  (Aram.);  i,  5 
pera  TroXXds  rauras  i^pas  (Jewish  Aram.);  i,  10  /ecu  cos  (naO 
a.Tevi£ovTes  rjffav  .  .  .  KO.L  loov  (xrn)  K.r.X.;  i,  15  eiri  TO  O.VTO  (also  2, 
I,  44,  47);  2,  7  ovxi  ioov  (Aram.);  2,  23  IKOOTOV  5id  xtipbs  (TS) 
dj>6/icov;  2  3,  20  Kcupot  a.va.\l/v^fus  airo  TrpocrcoTrou  TOV  Kvpiov,  4,  12  r6 
dedofj-tvov  kv  avdp&TTois',  4,  16  ywarbv  <rrj(j,€lov  (Aram.);  4,  30  kv  rcjj 
rr)v  xtipa,  eKreivew  erf,  5,  4  rl  OTI  Wov  kv  r#  napdia,  <rov,  5,  28  ira.pa.y- 
yc\iq,  Trapr)yyd\afjitv;  5,  41  CLTTO  Trpoff&irov  rov  ffvvedpiov,  6,  5  nai 
6  XcVyos  iv&inov  TTCWTOS  rov  Tr\r)dovs',  7,  13  kv  TCO  Seur^pco 


1  I  give  here  only  a  selection;  it  would  be  easy  to  make  the  list  much  longer.  I  have 
designated  those  idioms  which  are  specifically  Aramaic;  those  which  are  not  thus  desig- 
nated might  be  either  Aramaic  or  Hebrew.  The  Aramaic  equivalents  not  given  here 
will  be  found  in  the  sequel.  Some  of  these  idioms  are  to  be  found  occasionally  in  the 
Koine,  but  no  specimen  of  the  Koine"  ever  showed  such  an  array  as  this! 

1  Cf.  Wellhausen,  Krilische  Analyse,  5  (this  is  the  passage  in  which  he  touches  the 
question  of  a  Semitic  source).  In  the  original  Aramaic  the  words  were  the  same  as 
those  in  Mark  14,  41,  and  the  rendering  should  have  been  els 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  7 

€yvupiff6r)  rots  d5eX$ois  CLVTOV;  7,  23  aveftri  tiri  rrjv  Kapoiav  CLVTOV 
(Aram.);  7,  53  els  diarayas  ayyeXuv ;  8,  6  &  TW  awveiv  aurous; 
9,  3  eV  S£  T$  iroptveadcu,  eytvero  CLVTOV  fyyifcw;  9,  22 
(Aram.,  ^nnx);  9,  32  dia  TT&VTCW;  10,  14  ovdeirore 

7ra>  ($53)  KOWOJ';  10,  15  TrdXij'  e/c  devTcpov  (probably  ily 
so  also  Matt.  26,  42);  10,  25  eyevero  rov  d<r€\Qeiv\  n,  4 
(Aram.);  n,  22  riKovaOr]  els  ra  wra;  12,  3  7rpo0-€0ero 
<rv\\a(3eLv ;  12,  10  irporj\0ov  pv^v  piav  (nn  for  indefinite  article; 
even  more  common  in  Aramaic  than  in  Hebrew);  13,  n  KCU  vvv 
idov  x*ip  Kupiou  iirl  <re;  and  also  axpt  Kaipou  (pij;  ^,  Dan.  7,  12 
etc.);  13,  12  €KTr\t]TTOfji€vos  em  (i>y)  rf?  5i5ax§;  13,  24  Trpo  7rpo(rco7rou 
TTys  €tcr65ou  auroO;  13,  25  O^K  el/it  €70?  (Aram.);  14,  2  eKaKoxrav  ras 
\frvxas  T&V  iQv&v]  14,  8  xu>\6s  IK  /cotXtas  fj.rjrp6s  avrov  (also  3,  2); 

14,  15  evayyf\L^6fj.€VOL  vfj.as  eTnffTpefaiv  eiri  deov  Z&vra',    15,  4  Trapt- 
bixdriaav  airo  TTJS  eKK\r)ffla.s  (}»  i^apDN ,  the  invariable  idiom  in  Ara- 
maic.   Correction  to  UTTO,  as  in  most  MSS.,was  inevitable);  15,  7 
ev  vfuv  e^cXe'^aro  (see  below);    15,  3  (bre/cpifli;  'IaKco/3os  (the  very 
common  Aramaic  njy  "  take  up  the  word,"  sometimes  hardly 
more  than  "  speak  ";  cf.  Dan.  4,  27  !    So  also  3,  12  and  5,  8); x 

15,  23  ot  7rp€ff@VTtpoi  adt\<f>oL 

The  fact  that  so  many  of  these  idioms  are  obviously  Aramaic, 
while  no  specifically  (or  even  prevailingly)  Hebrew  idiom  is  to  be 
found,  is  certainly  not  accidental.  Moreover,  it  is  not  enough  to 
speak  of  frequent  Semitisms;  the  truth  is  that  the  language  of  all 
these  fifteen  chapters  is  translation-Greek  through  and  through, 
generally  preserving  even  the  order  of  words. 

In  the  remainder  of  the  book,  chapters  16-28,  the  case  is  altogether 
different.  Here,  there  is  no  evidence  of  an  underlying  Semitic  lan- 
guage. The  few  apparent  Semitisms  (/cat  idov;  ey&ero  with 
infin.;  rare  used  in  continuing  a  narrative;  iv&iriov  with  gen.; 
Wero  €v  raj  Tr^eujuart  Tropeveffdai ;  «/c  /zeVou  (iv  AieVw)  avr&v)  are 
chargeable  to  the  Koine;  though  their  presence  may  be  due  in  part 
to  the  influence  of  the  translation-Greek  which  Luke  had  so  exten- 

1  The  idiom  is  also  Hebrew.  As  for  2  Mace.  15, 14,  it  was  written  by  a  man  who,  as 
we  have  good  reason  to  believe,  was  as  familiar  with  Aramaic  as  with  Greek  (see  my 
Aramaic  Gospels,  295). 


8  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

sively  read  and  written.  In  either  case  they  are  negligible.  Luke's 
own  language  —  if  that  is  really  what  we  have  in  the  latter  half  of 
Acts  —  has  a  simplicity  of  structure  that  is  often  much  like  the 
Semitic,  and  this  fact  renders  the  transition  less  abrupt.  Harnack, 
Apostelgeschichte  16,  says:  "  Im  allgemeinen  kommt  Lukas'  Stil  dem 
der  Septuaginta,  namentlich  aber  dem  der  Makkabaerbiicher  (der 
aber  selbst  nichts  anderes  ist  als  der  Stil  der  gesprochenen  Sprache, 
von  gebildeten  Mannern  behandelt)  sehr  nahe."  Whoever  is  well 
acquainted  with  the  literature  here  named  will  rub  his  eyes  when  he 
reads  these  words.  The  "  style  "  of  the  LXX  is  simply  the  style  of 
literal  translations  from  Semitic  originals,  the  clumsy  result  of  put- 
ting Hebrew  writings  into  a  too  closely  fitting  Greek  dress.  Luke's 
style  in  Acts  16-28  (the  only  place,  excepting  Luke  i,  1-4,  where 
we  can  really  examine  it)  has  in  it  scarcely  anything  to  remind  us  of 
the  Greek  Old  Testament.  In  structure,  syntax,  and  idioms  habi- 
tually employed  its  Greek  belongs  to  an  altogether  different  genus. 
And  what  is  "the  style  of  the  Books  of  Maccabees"?  i  Mace,  is  a 
closely  literal  rendering  from  a  Hebrew  original.  The  style  of 
2  Mace,  is  rhetorical,  somewhat  labored,  and  much  more  pretentious 
than  that  of  Luke,  and  is  totally  different  from  that  of  i  Mace. 
The  style  of  3  Mace,  is  so  overloaded  and  bombastic  as  to  make  the 
book  very  tiresome  reading.  In  4  Mace,  we  have  the  work  of  a 
master  of  Alexandrian  rhetoric,  but  his  style  has  hardly  any  resem- 
blance to  that  of  Luke.  The  Greek  of  Acts  16-28,  then,  is  not 
"  like  that  of  the  LXX,"  to  say  nothing  of  the  widely  diverse  Books 
of  Maccabees.  Furthermore,  even  if  we  substitute  "language"  for 
"  style,"  it  is  not  true  that  Acts  1-15  sounds  like  the  Koine.  It 
sounds,  on  the  contrary,  like  i  Mace.,  Jeremiah,  Daniel,  and  all  the 
other  translations  from  Hebrew  or  Aramaic.  The  voice  of  the 
Aramaic  can  be  heard  through  the  Greek.  Luke  translates  like  the 
best  interpreters  of  his  time,  always  faithfully  and  generally  word 
for  word.  When  he  writes  his  own  language,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
resulting  Greek  represents  a  Syrian  type  of  the  Koine  which  reads 
smoothly  and  is  sufficiently  idiomatic.1  In  short,  the  Greek  of  the 

1  In  some  respects  the  Greek  of  Marcus  Diaconus'  Life  of  Porphyrius  of  Gaza  offers 
an  interesting  parallel  to  that  of  Acts  16-28,  after  due  allowance  has  been  made  for  the 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  9 

first  half  of  Acts  differs  widely  and  constantly  from  that  of  the  sec- 
ond half,  both  in  the  idiom  which  it  uses  and  in  its  literary  structure. 
There  is  one  obvious  and  satisfactory  way  of  accounting  for  this 
fact,  namely  the  hypothesis  of  translation  in  the  first  half.  Is  there 
any  other  adequate  explanation  ?  1 

It  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  say  that  any  attempt  to  reconstruct 
the  Judean  Aramaic  dialect  of  the  middle  of  the  first  century  is 
bound  to  be  arbitrary,  and  that  the  result  can  only  be  an  artificial 
idiom.  We  must  rely  chiefly  on  our  meager  knowledge  of  the  Ara- 
maic of  the  "  Biblical  "  period  (3d-2d  centuries  B.C.),  and  our  hardly 
more  satisfactory  acquaintance  with  the  dialect  of  the  Onkelos  Tar- 
gum  (mainly  second  century  A.D.;  a  translation  idiom,  with  all  the 
usual  characteristics  of  such  a  creation) .  We  have  also  the  valuable, 
though  very  scanty,  aid  afforded  by  the  Megillath  Taanith  and  other 
bits  of  the  genuine  Judean  speech  of  the  first  or  second  century 
which  have  been  preserved  in  the  Talmud  and  elsewhere.  The 
many  other  helps,  necessary  but  of  minor  importance,  need  not  be 
mentioned  here.  Questions  as  to  the  type  of  speech  most  likely  to 
be  employed  in  such  a  narrative  as  this  in  Acts,  whether  popular 
or  formal,  whether  archaizing  or  representing  actually  current  use, 
are  perhaps  a  mere  waste  of  time.  The  answer  to  them,  moreover, 
would  not  in  the  least  affect  the  results  reached  in  any  of  the  pas- 
sages discussed  in  the  following  pages.  In  my  own  attempts  at 
retranslation  I  have  been  guided  by  the  probability  that  since  this 
is  distinctly  a  literary  composition,  and  also  written  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  Jewish  sacred  tradition,  its  diction  may  well  be  supposed 
to  have  inclined  toward  that  of  the  older  models.  At  all  events,  the 
words  and  phrases  here  conjectured  are  all  truly  Aramaic  and  Pales- 
tinian, and  possible  of  use  at  the  time  supposed. 

interval  of  time  between  the  two  writings.  The  style  is  very  simple,  and  the  language 
contains  some  distinct  Syriasms  O'ust  as  Luke's  frequent  use  of  r6re,  "  thereupon,"  is 
probably  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Aramaic  PIK).  Luke's  style,  however,  is  even 
more  direct  and  effective,  and  also  stands  on  a  higher  literary  plane. 

1  In  regard  to  the  untenability  of  the  theory  that  Luke  "  imitated  the  LXX  "  I  have 
expressed  myself  at  some  length  elsewhere  (Aramaic  Gospels,  pp.  285-288). 


10  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

§  i.  ESPECIALLY  STRIKING  EXAMPLES  OF  MISTRANSLATION 

«5  \) 

IN  ACTS  1-15 

Especially  striking  evidence  of  translation  in  chapters  1-15  is 
afforded  by  the  following  passages.  I  have  put  first  a  number  of 
examples  of  serious  mistranslation;  then  follows  a  collection  of 
minor  slips,  including  too  literal  renderings.  This  latter  list  could 
be  considerably  lengthened. 

2,  47.  The  most  interesting  of  all  the  phrases  which  suggest  trans- 
lation is  found  in  2,  47.  The  narrator  is  telling  how  the  first  large 
body  of  believers  was  formed  in  Jerusalem,  as  the  result  of  those 
things  which  happened  on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  The  new  commun- 
ity was  harmonious  within,  and  was  looked  upon  with  favor  by  all 
the  people  of  the  city:  "  Day  by  day,  continuing  steadfastly  with 
one  accord  in  the  temple,  and  breaking  bread  at  home,  they  did  take 
their  food  with  gladness  and  singleness  of  heart,  praising  God  and 
having  favor  with  all  the  people."  Verse  47  then  continues:  6  8k 
Kvpios  irpofffridet.  TOVS  <ro}£ofj,€vovs  nad'  r)fj,epav  eiri  rb  aur6.  Excepting 
the  last  three  words,  this  is  just  what  we  should  expect:  a  general 
statement  regarding  the  increase  of  the  newly  formed  church,  simi- 
lar to  the  statements  made  at  frequent  intervals  (4,  4;  5,  14;  6,  7; 
9,  31,  etc.),  throughout  this  narrative.  But  the  words  eiri  TO  avrb 
have  remained  an  unsolved  riddle.  The  phrase  ordinarily  means 
"  together,"  "  in  the  same  place  ";  in  the  Greek  Old  Testament  it 
is  the  standing  equivalent  of  nrp  and  rnrr  .  It  has  just  been  used  in 
this  chapter,  vs.  44:  "  And  all  that  believed  were  together,  and  had 
all  things  common."  Other  passages  in  Luke — Acts  are:  Luke  17, 
35,  "Two  women  shall  be  grinding  together"]  Acts  i,  15,  "A  multi- 
tude of  persons  together";  2,  i,  "They  were  all  together  in  one 
place."  Cf.  also  4,  26,  where  the  phrase  is  taken  over  from  the  Greek 
Old  Testament  (Ps.  2,  2  liri  r6  avro =irv)-  But  in  2, 47,  the  passage 
under  discussion,  the  meaning  "  together  "  is  obviously  inadmis- 
sible. It  is  true  that  Lumby  in  the  Cambridge  Bible,  with  the 
scholar's  wish  to  follow  well-known  usage,  renders:  "  And  the  Lord 
added  day  by  day  together  such  as  were  in  the  way  of  salvation  "  ; 
but  other  scholars  will  see  in  this  only  a  bit  of  "  translation-English," 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  II 

a  rendering  of  the  kind  so  familiar  in  the  Greek  Bible  —  and  possibly 
exemplified  in  this  very  eirl  TO  CLVTO  as  it  stands  before  us  so  ill-suited 
to  its  context. 

The  ancient  interpreters  felt  the  difficulty  of  the  phrase,  and  tried 
in  various  ways  to  overcome  it.  In  the  textus  receptus  the  attempt  is 
made  to  join  the  troublesome  words  to  the  following  verse,  making 
them  the  beginning  of  3,  i :  "  Now  together  Peter  and  John  went  up 
to  the  temple,"  etc. ;  a  futile  expedient  which,  however,  bears  elo- 
quent witness  to  the  inability  of  early  readers  —  who  really  knew 
Greek  —  to  give  the  iiri  TO  O.VTO  any  plausible  connection  with  the 
preceding  context.  Many  old  manuscripts  and  versions  endeavor 
to  improve  the  passage  by  inserting  T#  €KK\r](riq.  (a  dative  is 
to  be  expected  after  Trpoo-eriflei)  or  Iv  rf)  tKK\ri<ri<t.,  either  before 
or  after  the  three  words  under  discussion,  in  order  to  remove 
as  much  of  the  obscurity  as  possible.  Thus,  for  example,  Cod.  D 
has  .  .  .  Kad'  rjfjitpav  iiri  TO  O.VTO  iv  rf;  €KK\Tjffiq..  This  form  of  the 
insertion  might  seem  to  provide  a  foothold  for  the  eiri  TO  aur6,  and 
it  is  therefore  worthy  of  especial  notice  that  the  Syriac  version  and 
its  congeners  connect  the  latter  phrase  with  3,  i,  although  reading 
kv  XT)  e/c/cXr/crt^.1 

Modern  commentators  and  interpreters  have  passed  around  the 
difficulty  in  more  or  less  unhappy  fashion.  The  Revisers  of  1881 
render:  "  And  the  Lord  added  to  them  day  by  day  those  that  were 
being  saved,"  but  remark  in  the  margin  that  instead  of  "  to  them  " 
the  Greek  reads  "  together  ";  that  is,  they  really  do  not  render  the 
phrase  at  all.  In  Weizsacker's  N.T.  we  read:  "  Der  Herr  aber 
fiigte  ihrer  Vereinigung  taglich  bei,  die  sich  retten  liessen  ";  but  the 
Greek  cannot  possibly  mean  this.  Preuschen  (in  Lietzmann's  Hand- 
buck]  1912)  omits  the  phrase  in  his  translation,  remarking:  "  eirl 
TO  WTO  verstarkt  hier  lediglich  die  Proposition  in  Trpoo-ertflet."  So 
far  as  this  is  an  explanation  at  all,  it  means  that  either  Preuschen  or 
the  author  of  Acts  cared  nothing  for  Greek  usage.  Wendt  (in 
Meyer's  Komm.;  1913)  renders:  "  zu  dem  Zusammensein,"  but 

1  The  testimony  of  the  Peshitta  here  has  been  commonly  misunderstood  and  mis- 
stated; thus  in  Von  Soden's  Schriften  des  N.  T.  it  is  given  incorrectly  in  both  verses. 
The  word  akhedd  (=  nrP)  in  3,  i  is  unquestionably  the  rendering  of  ktrl  r6  afa 6. 


12  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

straightway  replaces  this  by  a  different  rendering:  "  auf  denselben 
Ort  hin,"  formerly  adopted  by  Holtzmann  (Handcomm.),  who  how- 
ever recognized  its  great  difficulty.  This  last  suggestion  in  fact  does 
justice  neither  to  Greek  usage  nor  to  the  historical  situation.  The 
incipient  church  in  Jerusalem  was  not  confined  to  any  one  meeting 
place  in  such  a  way  that  the  narrator  could  have  said:  "  The  Lord 
daily  added  new  converts  (and  brought  them)  to  the  same  place  "  ; 
nor,  if  he  had  wished  to  say  this,  would  he  have  employed  words 
which  seem  to  mean  something  else.  The  early  Church  Fathers  and 
scribes  of  the  sacred  text  could  not  be  satisfied  with  any  of  these 
attempts  at  explanation;  they  saw  clearly  that  something  was 
wrong  with  the  Greek  as  it  was  first  handed  down  to  them.  We 
also  may  say  with  confidence  either  that  the  Greek  of  2,  47,  in  the 
oldest  form  known  to  us,  has  suffered  corruption,  or  else  that  its 
author  was  writing  under  some  such  compulsion  as  that  of  trans- 
lation. 

Under  these  circumstances,  the  hypothesis  of  translation  from  a 
Semitic  original  certainly  deserves  to  be  considered.  When  the  test 
of  retroversion  into  Aramaic  is  applied,  the  result  is  unexpectedly 
interesting,  for  it  not  only  provides  an  easy  solution  of  the  difficulty 
of  the  passage,  but  also  seems  to  furnish  direct  evidence  that  author 
and  translator  lived  in  different  parts  of  the  Aramaic-speaking  world. 

Of  the  possible  Aramaic  equivalents  of  the  Greek  eVl  r6  avr6, 
Hebrew  -HIT  ,  only  one  needs  to  be  considered,  namely  the  adverbial 
compound  tr\rb  /&nr6 .  Etymologically,  this  is  equivalent  to  in 
unum,  and  it  is  occasionally  used  in  this  literal  sense,  "  into  one," 
meaning  "  together."  Thus  in  John  n,  52,  "  that  he  might  gather 
together  the  children  of  God  who  were  scattered,"  the  Syriac  versions 
have  lahdd  (Greek  els  «>).  Similarly  in  John  17,  23,  "  that  they 
(the  believers)  may  be  perfected  together  "  (lit.  into  one;  Greek  as 
above),  the  Palestinian  Syriac  has  lahdd,  while  the  Lewis  and  Pe- 
shitta  versions  have  lehad.  A  good  example  of  the  use  of  the  word 
to  mean  "together,"  Heb.  nrr,  is  found  in  the  Palestinian  Syriac 
version  of  Is.  43,  17:  "  Who  bringeth  out  chariots  and  horses,  host 
and  hero  together  (N"ir6)."  But  in  the  Judean  dialects  of  Aramaic 
the  usual  meaning  of  tnr6  is  "  greatly,  exceedingly,"  and  this  is  pre- 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  13 

cisely  what  is  needed  in  the  place  of  iici  TO  avro  in  Acts  2,  47.  For 
example,  in  the  Onkelos  Targum  tnr6  (properly  "  singularly,  un- 
iquely ")  is  the  ordinary  rendering  of  Heb.  ixp  .  Thus,  Exod.  19, 18, 
"And  the  whole  mountain  trembled  greatly,"  Nir6  &mt3  5a  yn . 
Similarly  in  Palestinian  Syriac,  the  Judean  dialect  as  we  find  it 
several  centures  later  (c.  5th  cent.  A.D.)  :  Matt.  2,  16,  "  Then  Herod 
.  .  .  was  angered  exceedingly  (lahda)."  Examples  with  verbs  of 
multiplying,  increasing,  and  the  like  are  numerous;  thus  from  the 
Onk.  Targ.:  Gen.  17,  2,  "  I  will  multiply  thee  exceedingly  («nr6 
tnr6,  corresponding  to  Heb.  IKD  "IKO);  Exod.  i,  7,  "The  children  of 
Israel  grew  in  strength  exceedingly  ";  and  many  others.  It  is  also 
worthy  of  especial  notice  that  in  the  clauses  where  this  adverb 
modifies  a  verb  it  is  regularly  placed  at  the  end  of  the  clause  —  like 
the  €7rl  TO  ai>To  in  the  verse  under  consideration. 

At  the  end  of  Acts  2  the  statement  that  the  church  "  was  greatly 
increased  daily  "  is  certainly  to  be  expected;  not  only  because  of 
the  way  in  which  similar  statements  are  interjected  at  frequent 
intervals  through  all  this  part  of  the  history  (4,  4;  5,  14;  6,  7; 
9,  31),  but  also  in  particular  because  comparison  of  2,  41  with  4,  4 
shows  that  this  writer  did  indeed  think  of  this  very  time  as  one  in 
which  the  company  of  believers  was  greatly  and  rapidly  increased. 
We  know  that  it  was  not  his  habit  to  understate. 

The  question  why  the  Greek  translator  misunderstood  his  text, 
can  be  answered  with  greater  ease  and  certainty  than  is  ordinarily 
possible  in  explaining  supposed  mistranslations.  The  reason  is 
simply  this,  that  the  use  of  xinb  to  mean  "greatly,"  etc.,  is  a  peculi- 
arity of  the  Judean  dialect,  while  the  Greek  version  was  presumably 
made  at  some  distance  from  Judea.  This  use  of  the  word  is  not 
only  absolutely  unknown  in  the  Aramaic  of  Northern  Syria  and  in 
classical  Syriac,  but  it  is  also  unheard  of  in  the  other  Palestinian 
dialects,  including  even  the  Galilean.  It  is  never  found,  for  instance, 
hi  the  Palestinian  Talmud  or  Midrash  (Dalman,  Grammatik  des 
jiidisch-paldstinischen  Aramaisch,2  211). l  If  we  suppose,  for  ex- 
ample, that  this  document  of  the  Jerusalem  church,  composed  in 

1  For  an  instance  of  this  usage  in  a  remote  Aramaic  dialect,  see  Noldeke,  Mandtiische 
Grammatik,  207  below. 


14  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

Judea,  was  translated  by  a  native  of  Antioch,  familiar  with  Aramaic 
from  his  childhood,  we  can  scarcely  doubt  that  on  coming  to  this 
tnrb  he  would  be  somewhat  puzzled  by  it.  It  could  hardly  suggest 
to  him,  in  this  context,  any  other  idea  than  "  together,"  and  we 
should  expect  him  to  render  it  by  the  customary  phrase  ini  rb  avr6. 
We  may  then  restore  the  original  Aramaic  of  2,  476  as  follows: 
mrb  Dr  f>3  pn  nf>  Kin  spto  VIDI  .  Here,  the  preposition  i>  in  the 

T  :  -  •..'••  T       •  :        T-;     '  ••  T  ;  T  :  r      IT 

fourth  word  might  signify  either  the  dative  or  the  direct  object. 
Doubtless  it  was  originally  intended  to  signify  the  former;  but  if 
the  translator  failed  to  recognize  the  peculiar  use  of  jnni>  (and  we 
certainly  should  not  expect  him,  if  he  lived  at  a  distance  from 
Judea,  to  be  familiar  with  this  merely  local  idiom),  it  was  inevitable 
that  he  should  render  with  the  Greek  accusative.  The  correct  ren- 
dering would  be:  6  5e  nvpios  irpoatrWu  rots  au^o^vois  Kad'  rj^pav 
cr065pa,  "And  the  Lord  added  greatly  day  by  day  to  the  saved."  2 

The  argument  derived  from  this  passage  is  exceedingly  forcible. 
The  hypothesis  of  accidental  coincidence  would  be  difficult  enough 
even  if  we  had  only  this  one  case  to  consider.  But  the  fact  is,  as  will 
be  seen,  that  half  a  dozen  others,  hardly  less  striking,  are  to  be  put 
beside  it.  Even  the  evidence  that  author  and  translator  lived  in 
different  parts  of  the  Aramaic-speaking  world  receives  corroboration 
from  other  passages. 

3,  16.  Kat  €7rt  rfi  TricrTtt  TOV  6v6fj.aros  avrov  TOVTOV  dv  0«opeTre 
icai  otSare  tartp&jXJtv  TO  ovo^a.  avrov  KCU  17  TTIOTIS  17  5t'  avrov  cdtaicfv 
abru  rr)v  6\oK\Tjpiav  TOLVT^V  a-jrevavTi,  wavrcov  vn&v.  "And  by  faith 
in  his  name  hath  his  name  made  this  man  strong,  whom  ye  see  and 
know;  yea,  the  faith  which  is  through  him  hath  given  him  this  per- 
fect soundness  before  you  all." 

The  passage  presents  two  very  obvious  and  serious  difficulties.  In 
the  first  place,  the  mode  of  expression  is  intolerably  awkward  and 


1  I  use  this  word  (N^.D  or  FliOD  ,&OO)  simply  for  convenience,  since  we  cannot 
be  certain  what  Aramaic  original  is  rendered  by  6  <cdpioj  in  this  and  similar  passages. 
The  Aramaic-speaking  Christians  of  the  early  church  in  Judea  presumably  followed  the 
current  Jewish  usage.  On  the  latter,  see  Dalman,  Worte  Jesu,  346  ff.,  266  ff. 

1  Lit.,  "  those  that  were  living"  i.  e.,  were  in  the  way  of  life;  a&SeaQat.  is  the  standing 
Greek  equivalent  of  this  verb,  as  also  ffwnjpla  of  the  noun  J^n  ;  see  the  Syriac  versions 
of  the  Bible. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  15 

confused,  in  Greek  even  more  than  in  English.  Wendt,  Komm., 
attempts  to  account  for  "  die  Schwerfalligkeit  des  Ausdrucks,"  but 
does  not  succeed  in  showing  any  good  reason  for  it.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  ideas  which  he  supposes  to  have  been  intended  could  very 
easily  have  been  put  into  palatable  Greek  even  by  a  writer  of  moder- 
ate ability.  Why,  in  particular,  was  it  necessary  to  obscure  the 
sense  and  spoil  the  sound  by  the  ugly  repetition  of  T&  ovo^a.  avrov  ? 
The  second  difficulty  is  far  more  important,  namely  this,  that  the 
passage  —  that  is,  the  first  half  of  verse  16  —  is  out  of  keeping  with 
its  own  context.  By  what  power  was  the  cripple  healed  ?  The 
whole  surrounding  context  implies  that  it  was  the  power  of  Jesus, 
and  the  latter  half  of  this  same  verse  16  says  that  "  the  faith  which 
is  through  him  "  made  the  man  whole.  But  i6a  expressly  attributes 
the  healing  to  a  certain  quasi-magical  power  in  the  Name  of  Jesus. 
As  Preuschen  (in  loc.}  says,  "  Der  Name  wirkt  selbst  das  Wunder." 
Such  an  outcropping  bit  of  popular  superstition  (not  found  elsewhere 
in  the  New  Testament)  might  indeed  be  credited  to  the  author  of 
this  narrative  if  the  evidence  of  it  were  unequivocal,  but  in  point  of 
fact  the  evidence  is  confined  to  this  one  curious  and  clumsy  half- 
verse.  We  certainly  seem  to  see  here  the  power  of  the  Name  itself 
expressly  distinguished  from  the  power  of  faith  in  or  through  the 
name;  but  on  the  other  hand  in  3,  26;  4,  2,  io&,  n,  120;  5,  31; 
10,  38  we  read  only  of  the  power  of  Jesus,  and  in  3,  i6b  of  the  power 
of  faith  through  him.  No  wonder  Preuschen  wishes  to  cancel  i6b 
as  an  interpolation,  made  "  um  der  Stellung  gerecht  zu  werden,  die 
sonst  der  Glaube  bei  den  Heilungen  einnimmt."  It  is  one  thing  to 
say  that  the  healing  is  performed  "  in  the  name  of  Jesus  "  (3,  6; 
4,  ioa,  126,  30),  or  "  through  his  name  "  (10,  43),  or  "  through  faith 
in  his  name  "  (3,  16,  beginning),  but  quite  another  thing  to  say  that 
the  name  itself,  through  faith  in  it,  wrought  the  miracle! 1 

1  It  is  evidently  under  the  influence  of  3,  i6a  that  so  many  modern  interpreters  refer 
rofrnp  in  4,  10  to  the  name,  rather  than  to  Jesus  himself.  Wendt,  Komm.,  declares  this 
to  be  "  grammatisch  genauer  ";  it  is,  however,  rather  a  question  of  rhetoric  than  of 
grammar.  To  me,  at  least,  the  whole  passage  sounds  better  and  more  like  the  author 
of  this  narrative  when  the  transition  from  the  name  to  the  person  is  made  at  just  this 
point.  Observe  how  the  very  same  transition,  in  the  reverse  order,  kv  ftXXy  ovdevL  .  .  . 
kv  w  (r<?  ofo/nan),  is  made  two  verses  farther  on,  in  vs.  12. 


1 6  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

Turning  the  Greek  word  by  word  into  Aramaic  we  obtain  the 
following  result:  not?  t\\>r\  JVUK  pjm  pruN  prn  n  jnr6  BB^  ^  KriJD'mi 
fi3^3  Dip  an  sniD^n  r6  nan11  m  n  NruoTn .  Here  there  is  a  curious 
ambiguity  in  the  middle  of  the  sentence,  which  probably  accounts  for 
the  difficulty  in  our  Greek.  What  was  originally  intended  was  not 
e<TTfpeuff€  TO  ovofJiOL  avTov,  but  not?  v\$F\  vyifj  tiroirjaev  (or 
v}  O.VTOV.  This  latter  phrase  is  idiomatic  in  all  respects, 
and  suits  its  context  perfectly,  the  subject  of  the  verb  being  either 
'Irjffovs  or  6  deos.1  Luke's  rendering  is  a  very  natural  one,  since  he 
seemed  to  have  before  him  the  same  word  (riD^)  which  he  had 
rendered  at  the  beginning  of  the  sentence.  The  translation  should 
then  be:  "  And  by  faith  in  His  name  He  hath  made  strong  this  one 
whom  ye  see  and  know;  yea,  the  faith  which  is  through  Him  hath  given 
him  this  soundness  before  you  all."  Compare  with  the  verse  as  thus 
restored  10,  43,  which  is  a  good  parallel.  Notice  also  that  the 
Syriac  version  renders  in  this  same  way,  "He  hath  made  sound  and 
whole,"  apparently  cutting  loose  from  the  Greek  and  translating 
according  to  the  requirement  of  the  context.  9,  34,  40  also  show 
plainly  (what  no  one  would  question,  but  for  this  mistranslated  pas- 
sage) that  the  miracles  of  healing,  and  even  of  restoration  of  the 
dead  to  life,  were  performed  through  faith  in  Jesus,  indeed,  but  not 
by  his  name. 

4,  24  ff.  A&TTrora,  av  6  Troirj<ras  TOP  ovpavov  nai  T^V  yrjv  /cat  TTJV 
O6.\a.aaa.v  K.a.1  TTO.VTO.  ra  kv  aurots,  6  TOV  7rarp6$  yftuv  6ia  7n>eu/zaros 
ayiov  ffr6fj,aros  AaveiS  Tratdos  <rov  ciir&v  Iva.  rl  e<f>pva.£av  WVTJ  .  .  . 
Kal  Kara  TOV  XpttrroO  avrov.  avvi]\Bf]oo.v  yap  K.T.&.  The  difficulty  of 
this  passage,  namely  of  the  first  clause  of  verse  25,  is  so  notorious  that 
it  need  not  be  set  forth  here.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  modern 
scholars  have  either  virtually  or  expressly  declared  the  text  quite 
hopeless.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  whole  clause  6  TOV  iraTpds  TIH&V 
.  .  .  eiTrcoy  is  untranslatable  —  an  incoherent  jumble  of  words;  the 
fact  is  quite  as  noticeable  that  no  simple  emendation  of  the  Greek 
will  render  the  clause  intelligible.  The  problem  is  not  to  be  solved 
by  cancelling  words,  nor  by  adding  them,  nor  by  making  transposi- 

1  In  the  Greek,  the  latter  would  be  preferred.  Not  so  in  Semitic,  in  which  the  change 
of  subject  is  easier.  Cf.  also  9,  34. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  17 

tions.  The  clumsy  phrase  which  Wendt  (Komm.,  p.  115,  note  2) 
hesitatingly  accepts  as  the  possible  original  was  not  obtained  by  any 
scientific  process,  but  simply  by  cutting  loose  —  as  some  of  the  early 
versions  did  —  from  the  text  which  has  been  handed  down  to  us. 
Preuschen  says  very  truly  that  the  words  which  constitute  the  first 
clause  of  vs.  25  "spotten  jeden  Versuches  einer  Konstruktion "  (or, 
he  might  have  added,  Rekonstruktion).  He  himself  regards  rou 
Trarpos  rin&v  and  5id  irv€Vfj.a.Tos  aylov  as  glosses,  but  this  explanation 
is  quite  without  plausibility;  the  former  phrase  (a  most  unlikely 
addition)  would  never  have  been  placed  where  it  now  stands,  and 
as  for  the  latter,  it  is  so  superfluous  as  to  be  all  but  inconceivable 
as  a  gloss.  The  fact  is,  our  Greek  text  of  the  verse  is  extremely  well 
attested,  and  no  attempt  to  get  beyond  it  has  ever  succeeded. 

As  soon  as  the  question  of  an  underlying  Aramaic  idiom  is  raised, 
the  probability  suggests  itself  that  the  source  of  the  confusion  lay  in 
a  relative  clause  beginning  Njnx  H  &rn ,  "that  which  our  father  .  .  .," 
which  was  misread  as  NJ13K  n  Kin  ,  6  rov  Trarpos  T\H&V.  Turning  the 
Greek  back  into  Aramaic  we  obtain:  Ntnip  -n  Nnn  Dis^»  NJUK  H  NTI 
IDK  Tny  TH  ,  "That  which  our  father,  thy  servant  David,  said  by  (or, 
by  the  command  of)  the  Holy  Spirit  ";  etc.  It  is  obvious  that  the 
neuter  pronoun,  "  that  which,"  is  required  by  the  whole  passage: 
the  connection  of  the  address  AeWora  .  .  .  aurois  becomes  evident 
for  the  first  time,  and  the  jap  in  vs.  27  now  comes  to  its  own.  In- 
stead of  the  more  common  Dia^,1  DIM  might  have  been  used;  com- 
pare e.g.  mrr  'ED,  "by  the  command  of  Yahwe,"  i  Chron.  12,  23. 
In  the  order  of  words  in  this  restored  Aramaic  there  is  nothing 
unusual ;  such  delayed  apposition  is  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  in 
this  case  we  can  see  a  rhetorical  reason  for  separating  "  our  father  " 
from  "  thy  servant  David."  There  is  now  no  ellipsis  in  the  passage,2 
but  everything  is  expressed  as  clearly  and  naturally  as  possible.  But 
as  soon  as  the  *  of  NTJ  was  lengthened  into  }  (perhaps  the  most  com- 
mon of  all  accidents  in  Hebrew- Aramaic  manuscripts,  and  here  made 
especially  easy  by  the  preceding  context)  the  whole  passage  was 

1  For  the  Greek  rendering,  cf.  Sid  ori/xeiTos  for  ""&/>  in  i  Kings  17,  i;  an  excellent 
parallel. 

2  In  English  idiom  we  should  use  as  instead  of  that  which:  "  Why  (as  our  father 
David  said)  do  the  heathen  rage  ?  " 


1 8  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

ruined.  NJUN  n  xin  was  of  necessity  6  TOV  Trarp6s  THJ&V,  and  every 
other  part  of  our  Greek  text  followed  inevitably;  there  is  no  other 
way  in  which  a  faithful  translator  would  have  been  likely  to  render 
it.1 

This  passage  gives  exceedingly  strong  support  to  the  theory  of 
translation.  The  manner  in  which  the  change  from  •"  to  i  reduces 
perfect  order  to  complete  chaos  is  as  remarkable  as  anything  of  the 
sort  in  the  history  of  the  ancient  versions. 

8, 10.  This  passage  occurs  in  the  story  of  Simon  the  Sorcerer.  He 
by  his  sorcery  had  made  such  an  impression  on  the  people  of  his  city 
that  they  all  united  in  saying :  OVTOS  ianv  T\  bvvayns  TOV  deov  fi  KOL\OV- 
liivt\  /ie7a\77,  which  must  be  translated:  "  This  (man)  is  the  power 
of  God  which  is  called  great."  Both  ancient  and  modern  scholars 
have  been  perplexed  by  this  sentence.  Some  Greek  manuscripts  and 
early  versions,  including  the  Peshitta,  omit  KaXov^vij  as  superfluous 
—  and  so  indeed  it  is.  Preuschen  would  cancel  it.  But  how,  then, 
account  for  its  presence  in  our  text  ?  There  is  no  conceivable  reason 
why  it  should  have  been  added.  As  for  the  "  great  power,"  it  has 
been  pointed  out  (what  we  could  have  taken  for  granted  even  with- 
out the  demonstration)  that  Gnostic  formulae  and  magic  texts 
speak  of  a  peyaXri  dwa^s.  But  this  is  quite  outside  the  atmosphere 
of  the  Book  of  Acts;  nor  have  we  any  reason  whatever  for  suppos- 
ing that  the  people  of  Samaria  were  a  Gnostic  community.  Some, 
including  Wendt,  have  even  preferred  to  follow  Klostermann's 
curious  suggestion  that  the  neyaXvj  of  this  verse  was  originally  a 
transliteration  of  N^JD  "  revealing!  " 

But  the  main  difficulty  of  the  verse,  after  all,  lies  in  the  TOV  deov. 
Who,  or  what,  can  have  been  intended  by  this  phrase  ?  It  is  toler- 
ably certain  that  the  scene  of  these  events  is  the  capital  city  of  the 
province  Samaria,  i.e.  Sebaste.2  Now  it  is  well  known,  though  often 

1  The  manner  of  the  translator  in  sticking  dose  to  a  difficult  Semitic  text,  following 
word  by  word  the  order  of  the  original  (excepting  that  he  did  not,  of  course,  write  SiA 
o-Ti/xaroj  •Kvcbua.rvs),  is  the  same  which  we  see  in  Luke  i  and  2;  see  Aramaic  Gospels, 
pp.  292  ff .,  305. 

*  If  we  had  only  verse  5  to  deal  with,  we  should  hardly  hesitate  to  declare  the  rather 
noticeable  phrase  i)  r6X«  TTJS  Zanaplas  a  mistranslation  of  pOB>  W1O ,  "  the  prov- 
ince of  Samaria  ";  cf.  Luke  i,  39,  where  the  mistranslation  is  certain.  In  verses  9 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  19 

forgotten,  that  the  city  (earlier  Samaria,  later  Sebaste)  was  never  a 
seat  of  the  "  Samaritan  "  religion.  Aside  from  Shechem-Neapolis  — 
always  the  headquarters  —  the  sect  occupied  certain  towns  and  dis- 
tricts of  the  province,  but  never  the  capital  city;  "  die  Stadt 
Samarien  blieb  heidnisch,  und  gehb'rte  nicht  zu  der  Gemeinde  der 
Samariter  "  (Wellhausen,  1 " sraelitische  undjiidische  Geschichte,1  194; 
see  also  his  Kritische  Analyse"  14) .  We  must  therefore  suppose  that 
those  to  whom  Philip  was  preaching  were  polytheists;  not  foreigners, 
indeed,  but  the  result  of  a  mixture  of  nations  and  a  syncretism  of 
religions  which  contained  Israelite  elements;  men  who  believed  in 
gods  many  and  lords  many.  What  deity  could  the  people  of 
Sebaste  have  designated  as  6  dtos  ? 
Verse  lob  rendered  into  Aramaic  reads  as  follows:  xnta  H  K^n  j«i 

T  T  -;         •          T  :  -     '     •• 

3-1  xnj?np  n  .  This  is  grammatically  ambiguous  as  it  stands,  seeing 
that  the  gender  of  ^n  happens  to  be  masculine;  but  it  is  beyond 
question  that  the  rendering  required  by  all  that  we  know  of  the  situa- 
tion is  the  following:  avrrj  (euros  is  also  possible)  iarlv  17  dvvanis 
TOV  6eov  TOV  KaXovpevov  neya\ov,  "  This  is  the  power  of  the  God  who 
is  called  Great"  It  is  true,  in  the  first  place,  that  both  Jewish  and 
early  Christian  usage  gave  to  God  the  title  M£yas;  see  for  example 
Sir.  39,  6;  43,  28;  3  Mace.  7,  22;  Titus  2,  13.  In  early  Syriac 
rabbd,  6  Meyas,  is  occasionally  used  absolutely  as  his  title.  Jews 
employ  this  adjective  in  speaking  of  their  God  to  foreigners;  thus 
Daniel  says  to  Nebuchadnezzar  (2,  45):  "A  Great  God  (Greek, 
6  6e6s  6  ptyas)  has  made  known  to  the  king  what  shall  come  to 
pass,"  and  in  Bel  and  the  Dragon  41  the  foreign  king  confesses: 
Meyas  karl  Kvpios  6  debs.  Again,  in  the  Book  of  Acts  we  not  only 
see  a  "  great  "  god  distinguished  from  other  gods  (19,  27  f.),  but  we 
also  have  in  16,  17  a  virtual  parallel  to  the  present  passage,  inas- 
much as  the  superiority  of  the  Christians'  God  is  confessed  by  a 
foreigner:  the  clairvoyant  maid  of  Philippi  declares  Paul  and  his 
companions  to  be  "  servants  of  the  Most  High  (inf/lo-rov)  God."  1  In 

and  14  Sa/*opia  is  of  course  the  province  (Wvos  in  9  is  probably  an  inaccurate  render- 
of  Dy  "  people  "),  but  8  and  9  sound  rather  as  though  a  city  were  really  intended. 

1  Cf.  also  such  passages  as  those  quoted  by  Norden,  Agnostos  Theos  39  f.:   els 
plv  6  neyiffTos  Ka.i  Kajdmrkprepm  icai  6  Kpari-uv  TOV  xeuros,  rol  S'AXAw  xoXXoi 
nard.  5fo/a/u»>  (from  the  "  Onatas  "  cited  by  Stobaeus);  «Is  0e6s,  &  re  0eoi<u  Kal 


20  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

a  word,  the  phrase  "  the  God  who  is  called  Great  "  is  a  thoroughly 
suitable  one  for  this  context,  from  any  point  of  view.  Luke  the 
translator,  led  by  his  own  monotheism  rather  than  by  his  imagina- 
tion, erred  in  connecting  the  adjective  with  the  word  "  power." 

11,  27-30.  This  passage  is  one  of  the  most  satisfactory  of  all,  in 
the  proof  of  translation  which  it  affords.  Certain  prophets  had  come 
from  Jerusalem  to  Antioch.  One  of  them,  named  Agabus,  made  a 
formal  (dpaords)  prediction  of  an  approaching  famine.  Verse  28 
says  of  this:  t<rr)na.w€v  5id  roO  irvevfJiaTOS  \LIMV  fj.eya\r]v  fj.&.\fiv  «re- 
ffdai  e<}>'  o\r]v  rrjv  olKovfjL^mjv  TJTIS  eytvero  iiri  KXauSiou,  "He  signified 
by  the  Spirit  that  there  would  be  a  great  famine  upon  all  the  world\ 
which  came  to  pass  in  the  days  of  Claudius."  Verses  29  f.  then 
proceed  to  tell  how,  when  the  famine  came,  the  disciples  in  Antioch, 
every  man  according  to  his  ability,  sent  relief  to  the  brethren  in  Judea. 
That  is,  there  was  no  famine  in  Antioch,  and  the  narrator  seems  to 
have  in  mind  only  Judea  as  the  afflicted  region.  Josephus,  Antt.  xx. 
5,  2  (cf.  2,  5),  does  indeed  tell  of  a  "  great  famine  "  which  came 
upon  Judea  in  the  first  years  of  the  reign  of  Claudius. 

There  have  been  many  attempts  to  explain  the  passage.  Some, 
like  Schiirer,  Gesch.3,  I,  567,  note  8,  would  pronounce  the  statement 
in  verse  28  "  eine  ungeschichtliche  Generalisirung."  But  that  is 
obviously  not  the  case,  if  verses  29  f.  refer  to  the  same  famine;  the 
region  of  Antioch  was  not  affected.  Preuschen  and  others,  misled 
by  the  fact  that  Roman  writers  mention  local  famines  in  several 
parts  of  the  empire  (but  none  of  them  at  all  wide-spread,  nor  any 
one  affecting  Palestine  except  the  one  above  mentioned)  in  the  reign 
of  Claudius,  decide  that  a  widely  extended  famine  was  indeed  cor- 
rectly foretold  by  Agabus,  in  verse  28,  but  that  in  verses  29  f.  this 
famine  is  confounded  with  the  one  in  Judea  described  by  Josephus; 
see  also  Encycl.  Bibl.,  art.  "  Chronology,"  §  76,  where  the  facts  are 


IJ&YUTTOS  (from  Xenophanes);  .  .  .  ifjtyeiv  Beoin,  k4>  &TTCUTI  54  ^5i;  rbv  nkyav  rS>v 
kitti  /SacriXia  Kal  'o>  r<f  ir\i}6ei  /idXwra  TUP  6t£>v  ri>  nkya.  abrov  kvfteiKvvukvovs  (from 
Plotinus);  and  finally,  in  the  passage  quoted  from  Apollonius  of  Tyana:  .  .  .  0«j> 
ftkv,  bv  dri  irpwrov  <£<£a^ec,  x.r.X.,  and  at  the  end  of  the  passage:  OVKOVV  Kara  raDra 
obSattus  T<J>  ncy&h?  KOI  &ri  v&vruv  0«j>  Birrtov.  "  The  God  who  is  called  Great  "  was 
an  idea  familiar  to  both  Greeks  and  Semites  in  the  days  of  the  Apostles.  But  Luke's 
translation  is  a  perfectly  natural  one. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  21 

stated  not  quite  accurately.  This  is  certainly  a  desperate  attempt 
at  explanation.  Wendt  concludes  that  the  author  of  Acts  here  mis- 
understood his  source;  the  words  of  Agabus  were  originally  in- 
tended as  a  prophecy  of  "  hunger  for  the  word  of  the  Lord  "  (Amos 
8,  n),  but  were  mistakenly  supposed  to  predict  a  famine!  It  is 
certainly  difficult  to  imagine  the  nature  of  a  "  source  "  in  which  the 
context  would  not  show  which  sort  of  famine  was  intended  by  the 
prophet. 

But  the  explanation  of  the  difficulty  is  both  easy  and  sure.  The 
Aramaic  original  had  the  word  «^-JK  (=  Heb.  p«,  "land,  earth"). 
The  author  of  this  document,  writing  in  Jerusalem,  followed  the 
time-honored  usage  in  calling  Judea  simply  "  the  land"  But  when 
the  translator,  living  outside  Palestine,  came  to  the  phrase  Kjnx  i>3 , 
it  was  only  natural  that  he  should  render  it  by  6X77  17  oiKovntvi],  "  all 
the  earth."  It  is  a  mistake  that  has  been  made  a  great  many  times. 
Luke  himself  made  it,  in  exactly  the  same  way,  in  his  Gospel  2,  i 
(Aramaic  Gospels,  p.  293),  where  he  represented  Quirinius  as  taxing 
"  all  the  world  "  (iraffav  rr\v  OIK.OV  \iivt\v  =  pxn  io)  instead  of  "  all 
the  land  "  of  Palestine. 

15,  7.  The  beginning  of  the  speech  of  Peter  in  the  council  at 
Jerusalem:  "Avdpes  d6eX$oi,  vftels  eiriffraffOe  on  d<£'  THJiep&v  dpxauop 
kv  vfj.1v  ^€Xe'£aro  6  0eds  5id  TOV  <7r6/iaros  JMV  d/coO<rai  TO.  WVTJ  TOV 
\6yov  TOV  evayy€\iov  nai  TrioreDo-cu.  This  presents  at  least  three 
considerable  problems.  'Ev  vfuv  is  obscure,  and  its  connection  un- 
certain. Many,  including  Preuschen,  prefer  to  read  ev  riiuv,  which, 
however,  does  not  do  away  with  the  main  difficulty.  Some  texts, 
including  the  Peshitta  and  Sahidic  versions,  prefer  to  omit  the 
troublesome  words  altogether.  Again,  the  verb  e^eXe^aro  is  hanging 
in  the  air,  without  any  direct  object.  In  order  to  see  how  hopeless 
the  case  really  is,  read  the  comment  of  Wendt  (Komm.,  pp.  228  f.). 
He  finally  suggests,  with  some  hesitation,  that  although  the  infinitive 
clause  is  dependent  on  the  idea  of  "  choosing  "  in  the  sense  of  be- 
sMiessen,  yet  instead  of  such  a  verb  the  author  preferred  to  substi- 
tute one  meaning  wdhlen,  since  Peter  had  in  fact  been  "  selected  " 
for  this  work.  But  did  not  Luke  know  the  Greek  language  ?  If  he 
meant  evdoKrjvfv,  why  did  he  not  write  it?  and  if  he  wished  to  speak 


22  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

of  the  selection  of  an  evangelist  to  the  heathen,  why  did  he  not  do 
so  intelligibly,  giving  his  verb  a  direct  object  ?  Finally,  the  phrase 
a<f>'  rmfp&v  dpxcucojf  is  ridiculously  unsuitable  in  this  connection.  As 
the  text  stands,  the  reference  can  only  be  to  the  events  of  chap.  10, 
which  happened  only  a  few  years  before  the  time  of  the  council. 
Preuschen  calls  the  phrase  a  "  starker  Ausdruck  fur  Trporepov."  But 
the  two  expressions  mean  very  different  things  !  Why,  if  Luke  meant 
"  formerly  "  or  "  recently,"  did  he  write  "  from  days  of  old  "  ?  1 

The  Aramaic  equivalent  of  the  troublesome  passage  would  read 
thus:  nMB  f>y  jnsoy  yoeto^  KH^K  ina  fira  wo^  sov  p  n  finjrr  IWUK 
NJOTI^  wnlDa  H  xnta  .  This  is  both  idiomatic  and  unambiguous. 

T  T    ••  : 

J133  stands  before  the  verb  for  the  sake  of  emphasis,  and  the  reason 
of  the  emphasis  is  obvious.  It  was  an  important  question,  whether 
the  evangelizing  of  the  Gentiles,  which  had  made  so  portentous  a 
beginning,  was  a  thing  which  had  arisen  far  from  Jerusalem  and 
without  the  cooperation  of  the  Apostles  to  whom  Jesus  had  com- 
mitted the  charge  of  his  church.  The  Greek  follows  the  Aramaic 
with  absolute  fidelity;  so  closely,  in  fact,  that  the  result  is  a  mis- 
translation. The  verb  im  is  construed  with  a,  which  is  replaced  by 
ev;  compare  Luke  12,  8,  os  av  6)^0X0717077  iv  e/iot,  "whoever  confesses 
me,"  and  many  similar  cases.  Perhaps  if  the  fm  had  been  placed 
after  the  verb,  Luke  would  not  have  rendered  so  cautiously.2  The 
rendering  in  English  is:  "  Ye  know  that  from  of  old  God  chose  you, 
that  the  Gentiles  might  hear,  by  my  mouth,  the  word  of  the  gospel,  and 
believe"  In  this  sentence  Peter  reminds  his  hearers  of  two  things: 
first,  that  Israel,  and  therefore  the  Church  of  the  Messiah,  had  been 
chosen  to  give  light  to  the  Gentiles;  and  again,  that  he  himself  had 
begun  this  work,  having  been  the  first  to  bring  to  them  the  gifts  of 
baptism  and  the  Holy  Spirit.  But  the  emphasis  is  put,  in  the 
Aramaic,  on  the  pronoun  "  you,"  and  the  mission  of  the  elect  church 
which  is  the  salt  of  the  earth,  rather  than  on  Peter  and  the  incident 
of  his  initial  effort. 


1  Compare  kn  yevt&v  iipxaluv  in  this  same  chapter,  vs.  21. 

1  It  is  of  course  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  a  translator  who  follows  his  original  rather 
closely  is  more  likely  to  make  mistakes  in  translating  Aramaic  than  in  rendering  Hebrew 
or  Arabic,  because  of  the  greater  freedom  in  the  order  of  words  in  the  Aramaic  sentence. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  23 

§4.  OTHER  EVIDENCE  OF  TRANSLATION  IN  THESE  CHAPTERS 

Aside  from  the  instances  of  serious  mistranslation,  the  following 
passages  containing  further  evidence  may  be  pointed  out. 

1,1.  ¥Hp£aro  is  simply  the  usual  rendering  of  Aram.  n$,  which 
in  the  Palestinian  dialect  is  used  constantly  in  this  almost  redundant 
way  (see  e.g.  Dalman,  Worte  Jesu,  21  f.).  It  is  very  unlikely  that 
the  word  would  have  been  used  here  in  a  Greek  composition.1  See 
also  below. 

i,  2.  The  awkward  position  of  5td  Tr^eu/zaros  07101;  (Wellhausen, 
Analyse,  would  cancel  the  phrase  as  a  later  addition)  is  another 
result  of  translation.  In  the  Aramaic,  the  words  came  at  the  end 
of  the  sentence,  just  before  the  verb  (a^eXi^^T/) .  But  in  that  posi- 
tion it  might  refer  to  either  one  of  the  two  phrases,  "  giving  command- 
ment to  the  Apostles  "  and  "  whom  he  had  chosen."  The  only  way 
a  cautious  translator  could  preserve  this  ambiguity  was  to  put  the 
words  where  they  now  stand. 

i,  4.  It  is  probable  that  the  somewhat  unusual  word  avvaKtfb- 
H€vos  is  the  (exact)  rendering  of  Aramaic  ntano ,  this  ithpa'al  mean- 
ing primarily  "  eat  salt  in  company  with,"  and  then  simply  "  have 
(table-)  companionship  with."  The  pe'al  occurs  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, Ezra  4, 14:  "  We  have  been  guests  (literally  have  eaten  the  salt) 
of  the  palace."  The  ithpa'al  happens  to  be  known  to  us  only  in  the 
northern  (Syriac)  dialect,  but  it  must  have  been  in  use  in  the  Pal- 
estinian speech.  Typical  examples  in  Syriac  are  the  following.  Ps. 
140,  4  (Heb.  141,  4):  "I  will  not  break  bread  with  them  (wicked 
men),"  where  Hebrew  has  the  denominative  Dr6x.  St.  Ephraemi 
opera,  ed.  Overbeck,  300,  19:  "  Now  let  us  be  his  guests  at  table  "  ; 
said  by  Joseph's  brethren,  Gen.  43,  32-34.  Ephr.  Syr.  opera,  ed. 
Benedictus,  i,  474 A:  "He  (Jeroboam)  consorted  with  a  heathen 
people";  where  the  context,  which  is  concerned  with  idolatry, 
shows  that  the  author  had  in  mind  primarily  sacrificial  feasts.  Ibid., 
534  c:  "  With  sinners  he  (Jesus)  consorted  and  ate  ";  the  two  verbs 
being  all  but  synonymous.  Finally,  the  verb  is  used  in  the  Har- 
klean  Syriac  rendering  of  <rvva\i£6ij,fvos  in  this  passage. 

1  For  a  conjecture  as  to  the  beginning  of  the  Aramaic  document,  see  below. 


24  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

It  is  certainly  easy,  then,  to  regard  the  Greek  word  as  a  transla- 
tion. As  to  the  meaning  of  the  original  Aramaic  here  there  could 
be  no  doubt.  The  distinct  character  of  the  word,  the  use  of  the 
corresponding  form  in  Syriac,  and  the  emphasis  laid  in  the  oldest 
Christian  tradition  on  the  fact  that  the  risen  Jesus  ate  with  his  dis- 
ciples (March  16,  14;  Luke  24,  30,  40  ff.;  Acts  10,  41;  John  21, 
9-13),  all  combine  to  show  that  eating  with  them  was  the  meaning 
intended.  It  is  plain,  moreover,  that  we  have  here  in  verses  3-8  a 
series  of  allusions  to  the  narrative  in  Luke  24,  36-49;  see  further 
below. 

i,  4.  The  transition  to  direct  discourse,  in  just  this  manner,  is 
the  usual  thing  in  Aramaic. 

i,  5.  For  the  redundant  demonstrative  (rauras)  in  Jewish  Ara- 
maic, see  Dalman,  Gramm*  1 13  f . 

1,6.  01  ffvv€\66vTes  is  of  course  "  those  who  had  come  together," 
or  better  "  those  who  were  present."  In  Aramaic,  iin  pfctonD  H  . 

i,  1 8.  Note  the  possibility  that  irp-qv^s  y€v6fj.€vos  renders  !>QJ  ,  and 
that  in  the  original  Aramaic  the  word  meant  "  cast  himself  down." 
The  whole  verse  may  well  have  read  as  follows:  }p  N^pn  &op  ^  fin 
vitj^riN  "niyp  b)  xyvp  }p  JttanNi  $>Q:H  HNCH  n  N^JK  .  "  For  he  had 
purchased  a  field  with  his  ill-gotten  gain;  and  having  cast  himself 
down,  he  burst  asunder  in  the  middle,  and  all  his  bowels  gushed  out." 
This  is  strikingly  summary;  it  would  seem  that  the  narrator  had  no 
relish  for  the  tale  of  Judas'  death,  but  made  it  as  brief  as  he  could. 
It  was  well  known  to  all  those  for  whom  he  was  writing;  on  the 
other  hand,  not  every  one  of  them  knew  the  origin  of  the  local  name 
"  H*qel-damd"  and  it  was  chiefly  in  order  to  put  this  on  record  that 
he  introduced  here  the  parenthesis  (vss.  18,  19).  For  the  ambiguity 
of  *?&},  cf.  especially  the  Lewis  Syr.  rendering  of  Matt.  4,  6:  /SdXe 
ffeavrbv  KCLTU,  pel  men  hdmekkd;  also  John  21,  7:  Peter  girt  his  coat 
about  him,  and  cast  himself  (ef3a\ej>  eavrov,  n'phat)  into  the  sea.1 
This  ambiguity  could  easily  account  for  the  Greek  of  Acts  i,  18. 
The  local  tradition  was  unquestionably  this,  that  Judas  committed 

1  Cf .  further  the  Syriac  renderings  of  Matt.  3, 10  (Lew.,  Pesh.) ;  5,  29  (Pesh.) ;  21,21 
(Lew.,  Cur.,  Pesh.);  Mark  n,  20  (Lew.,  Pesh.);  Luke  3, 9  (Lew.,  Cur.,  Pesh.),  in  all  of 
which  /3dXX«r0oi,  passive,  is  rendered  simply  by  ?BJ  . 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  25 


suicide.  The  translation  irpyvris  yevoptvos  left  room  for  this,  as  the 
use  of  TriwTeiv  would  not  have  done.  The  Greek  is  not  difficult, 
cf.  Kara  yfjv  yevonevos,  2  Mace.  9,  8,  in  the  story  of  the  death  of 
Antiochus  Epiphanes.  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  insist  that  irprjvris 
does  not  mean,  and  could  not  mean,  "swollen"!  The  fanciful 
expansion  of  the  story  found  in  Papias  was  the  source  of  the  Arme- 
nian translation  in  this  passage,  as  well  as  of  the  Armenian  and  Latin 
(-n-pijvfts  rendered  inflates)  in  Wisd.  4,  ig.1  The  account  of  the  death 
of  Judas  in  Acts  is  not  derived  from  the  passage  in  Wisdom  (Preu- 
schen,  p.  8);  it  is  not  surprising,  on  the  other  hand,  that  after  Acts 
1-15  had  been  translated  into  Greek  many  should  have  been  reminded 
by  it  of  the  words  prj^ei  .  .  .  irprjveis  in  the  older  passage  —  though 
the  resemblance  is  not  in  any  way  remarkable.  Nor  does  it  seem  to 
be  the  case  that  Matt,  follows  another  tradition  ("  einer  vollig 
abweichenden  Ueberlief  erung,"  Preuschen,  ibid.)  .  The  author  of  the 
First  Gospel  starts  from  the  same  popular  belief  regarding  the 
"  Field  of  Blood,"  z  but  makes  out  of  it  his  own  story,  more  suo,  on 
the  basis  of  Zech.  n,  12  f.  There  is  nothing  improbable  in  the 
supposition  that  Judas  owned  a  piece  of  land,  and  committed  suicide 
on  it;  nor  that  the  "  Field  of  Blood  "  actually  received  its  name  in 
this  way. 

1,22.  "  During  all  the  time  that  the  Lord  Jesus  went  in  and  out 
among  us,  dp^djuepos  OLTTO  roO  ^3a7rri(rjuaro$  'luavov  «os  rrjs  fifttpas  175 
avt\rifj,(f>d'r]  a<f>'  Tj/iaW  This  is  an  Aramaic  idiom:  "from  (j»  fcos?»)  3 
.  .  .  unto  (*TJj)."  Similarly  Matt.  20,  8,  dp£dju€i>os  OLTTO  TU>V  ta-xa-tuv 
e'cos  T&v  Trp&Tw;  Luke  23,  5,  8i8a<TK<i)i>  KaO'  0X775  rrjs  'lovdaias,  nai 
dp^djuevos  ct7r6  TT^S  FaXiXaias  e'cos  co5e.  This  is  passable  Greek, 
though  not  classical  (Blass  §  74,  2)  ;  but  the  verb,  or  participle, 

1  Acute  disease  of  the  bowels,  in  one  form  or  another,  is  a  strikingly  common  feature 
of  oriental  popular  accounts  of  "  the  most  miserable  death  of  the  wicked."    Aside  from 
the  story  in  2  Mace.  9,  that  of  the  death  of  Herod  the  Great  in  Jos.,  Anil,  xvii,  6,  5, 
Bell.  Jud.  i,  33,  5,  and  of  Herod  Agrippa  I  in  Acts  12,  23,  compare  the  accounts  of 
abdomens  bursting,  bowels  consumed  by  fire,  or  by  worms,  and  the  like,  in  the  ancient 
Life  of  Simeon  Stylites  (Journal  of  the  Am.  Or.  Soc.,  36,  pp.  49,  56,  57,  69,  70;   cf. 
also  53). 

2  Whether  the  i.-jHij^aro,  "  hanged  himself,"  of  Matt.  27,  5  belonged  to  the  tradition, 
or  was  merely  Matthew's  inexact  term  for  the  mode  of  suicide,  may  be  questioned. 

,  or  N"ie>»  H3  ,  might  equally  well  be  used. 


26  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

of  "  beginning  "  is  one  which  is  often  used  loosely  in  Palestinian 
Aramaic,  even  to  the  point  of  redundance  (see  the  note  on  i,  i), 
and  it  seems  plain  that  what  we  have  here  is  a  form  of  this  local 
peculiarity.  In  several  other  passages  (see  below)  the  Greek  par- 
ticiple dp£d/z€fos  is  used  in  this  same  way;  and  from  a  comparison 
of  all  the  occurrences,  with  especial  regard  to  the  structure  of  the 
sentence  in  each  case,  it  becomes  increasingly  probable  that  a 
peculiar  idiomatic  use  of  ineto  is  the  source  of  our  Greek.  In  Ara- 
maic the  word  is  an  accusative  of  state  or  condition,1  sometimes 
rather  loosely  connected,  so  that  a  faithful  Greek  rendering  is  likely 
to  be  awkward.  Even  in  Luke  23,  5  (just  cited)  the  clause  sounds 
decidedly  better  when  turned  into  Aramaic.2  In  Luke  24,  27  we 
seem  to  have  an  example  of  the  looser  use  of  the  native  idiom: 
"  And  then  (ap^a^evos)  from  Moses  and  all  the  prophets  he  inter- 
preted to  them,"  etc.  In  two  other  passages  with  dp^djuepos  we  see 
exemplified  in  a  very  striking  way  Luke's  cautious  faithfulness, 
leading  him  into  translation- Greek  of  the  stiffest  type.  The  first 
of  these  is  Luke  24,  47:  "  It  is  written  .  .  .  that  repentance  and 
remission  of  sins  should  be  preached  (KrjpvxSfjvai)  in  his  name  unto 
all  the  nations  (els  iravTa  TO,  Wv-rj),  dp^d/ze^oi  cnro  'ItpoixraX^/i.  i»/jeis 
judprupes  TOVTUV."  The  Aramaic  could  have  precisely  this  participial 
construction,  the  participle  being  in  the  accusative  of  condition, 
though  without  case-ending  or  other  sign  to  show  how  it  should  be 
connected:  }p  fneto  s»»»g  W  pxtpn  rwpa^  navn  ap^a  nation  ni 
p^K  n  PL!?  flnJK  tbvh^ .  Here,  the  participle  "  beginning  "  should 
be  connected  with  "  the  nations  ";  it  might,  however,  by  a  loose 
construction,  be  referred  to  the  disciples',  and  since  the  next  follow- 
ing words  are  "  ye  are  witnesses,"  while  the  very  next  verse  (49) 
commands  the  disciples  to  remain  in  the  city  for  the  present  (cf. 
Acts  i,  4,  8,  etc.),  and  they  did  in  fact  begin  preaching  to  the 
Gentiles  in  Jerusalem,  it  is  probable  that  any  good  translator  of  that 

1  A  favorite  construction  with  the  participle  in  the  Semitic  languages;    cf.  e.  g., 
Ezr.  7,  16  ra*Wn» ,  Targ.  Is.  53,  7  ^  J    in  Hebrew,  i  Ki.  14,  6  HK3 ,  Hag.  i,  3 
D^BD  ;  and  with  prefixed  1,  2  Sam.  13,  20  riDDlKh  ,  Hab.  2,  10  NOini .    Examples 
could  be  multiplied  to  any  extent. 

2  Cod.  D  gives  the  Greek  a  more  natural  sound  by  omitting  the  nai,  whose  use  is  not 
justified  by  the  context.    In  Aramaic  the  1  is  entirely  idiomatic,  see  above. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  27 


time  would  have  chosen  apj-a/jicvot  rather  than  dp^djuepa.  The  Greek 
was  bound  to  be  bad  in  either  case,  and  the  masculine  made  better 
sense. 

The  other  passage  is  Acts  10,  37:  v/zets  oidare  rd  yevbuevov  pfj^a 
Kad'  6X775  TTJS  'lovdalas,  dp^d/iews  biro  rrjs  FaXtXatas  /icrd  r6  (3a.Tr- 
Ttcr/ja  6  tKr)pv$;€v  'IcodvT/s,  'lyaovv  rbv  curb  Na£"ap&7,  a>s  fXPiffev 
O.VTOV  6  deds  irvevfjiaTi,  a7tCfj  /cat  dwd/m,  6s  di,fj\Qev  evepyeT&v  /c.r.X. 
This  case  very  closely  resembles  the  other.  There  was  the  same 
Aramaic  particple,  &OK>D  ,  in  the  same  construction:  jinjx  pjrv 


Of  course  the  obvious  connection  of  the  participle  is  with 
(p?7jua,  "thing");  yet  in  view  of  Acts  i,  22,  'Irjo-ovs  dp^d/iews  airo 
TOV  fia.TTTio'iJLa.Tos  'luavov,  and  Luke  23,  5,  /cat  dp^d/iews  axo  TT/S 
FaXtXaias  (!),  the  translator  must  have  felt  it  important  to  leave 
open  the  possibility  that  here  also,  as  in  the  two  parallel  pas- 
sages, it  was  Jesus  who  "  began."  The  only  way  in  which  he  could 
do  this,  while  keeping  close  to  his  original,  was  to  use  the  masculine 
nominative  case,  dp^d/zews.  It  is  a  very  common  translator's  de- 
vice, illustrated  in  the  Greek  O.T.  as  well  as  in  the  Book  of  Revela- 
tion in  the  N.T.1 

Blass,  §31,6  (end),  thought  that  dp^d/^os  airo  rfjs  FaXiXaias  in 
Acts  10,  37  might  have  been  interpolated  from  Luke  23,  5.  From 
what  source,  then,  was  dp£djuei>ot  airb  'lepovcraX-fifj,  in  Luke  24,  47  in- 
terpolated ?  The  two  cases  explain  and  support  each  other  unmis- 
takably; in  both  the  correct  text  has  been  preserved  along  with 
later  attempts  at  improvement.  The  twofold  barbarism  is  not  due 
to  a  twofold  accident,  it  is  simply  a  well-known  feature  of  transla- 
tion Greek.  The  man  who  composed  Luke  1,1-4  (and,  as  I  believe, 
also  Acts  16-28)  knew  the  Greek  language,  had  ideas  regarding 
literary  style,  and  was  capable  of  expressing  himself  clearly  in  a 
way  that  was  not  intolerably  clumsy.  But  the  ancient  translator 

1  Compare  also  with  both  these  passages  such  cases  as  i  Ki.  5,  14:  nal  dir«<TTeiX«»» 
ainovs  «l$  T&V  ALftavov,  8&ca  xi^l(i5«  &  T<?  M*?^  aXXa<r<r<5/t«>oi-  nrjva  fitrav  kv  T(3  .\i@ai>u>, 
K.T.X.  Here  the  participle  is  masculine,  not  feminine,  because  TYlS  vH  refers  rather  to 
the  suffix  prounoun  (=  avrovi)  than  to  D^BpN  ;  and  nominative  because  of  the  liberty 
which  the  translator  enjoys  (observe  that  in  the  original  the  case  is  the  same  suspended 
accusative  of  condition  which  we  have  in  our  &p£&nei>os  passages). 


28  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

was  under  a  compulsion  stronger  than  that  of  style.  From  the  point 
of  view  of  his  time,  there  was  no  way  of  solving  this  particular  prob- 
lem of  interpretation  more  satisfactory  than  the  one  which  he  chose. 

2,  i.  An  interesting  and  characteristic  specimen  of  translation. 
"  When  the  day  of  Pentecost  arrived"  but  neither  avuirK-qpovaBou. 
nor  any  Semitic  equivalent  can  mean  this.  Moreover,  "Pentecost," 
77  i7/xepa  Tr}s  7r€vrr?/cocrr^s,  is  a  Hellenistic  coinage.  Obviously,  the 
original  was:  NjynK'  D^^rai ,  "and  when  the  Weeks  were  fulfilled," 
i.e. ,  the  seven  weeks  intervening  before  the  Feast.  It  was  customary 
to  refer  to  the  interval  in  just  this  way,  see  e.g.  Num.  28,  26.  Luke, 
always  faithful  and  always  Hellenistic,  rendered  the  infinitive 
exactly  (the  same  translation  in  Luke  9,  51),  but  employed  the 
technical  terminology  which  his  readers  would  understand. 

2,  7.  Ovxl  i&w  reproduces  xn  t6 .  The  Aramaic  interjection  is 
inserted  very  often  for  emphasis  where  run  or  jn  would  not  be  used  in 
Hebrew.  This  use  in  interrogation  (nonne)  is  known  to  us  mainly 
from  classical  Syriac;  cf.  the  Peshitta  in  Matt.  24,  2,  etc.  It  is  also 
good  Arabic. 

2,  22.  "  Designated  by  (airo)  God."  p  is  very  frequently  used 
with  a  passive  verb  to  denote  the  agent;  4,  36,  and  15,  33  are  similar 
cases.  Cf.  also  Luke  6,  18;  7,  35! 

2,  24.  It  has  long  been  recognized  that  this  verse  contains  an 
ancient  mistranslation,  inasmuch  as  the  LXX's  udlves  Oavarov  in 
Ps.  17,  5;  144,  3  is  a  false  rendering  of  mo  ^nn,  "  bands  of  death." 
But  scholars  have  failed  to  draw  the  necessary  conclusion  from 
Xixras,  which,  as  many  have  observed,  suits  only  the  "  bands,"  not 
the  "  pains."  No  writer  composing  his  own  Greek  would  ever  have 
chosen  this  unsuitable  word,  and  there  is  nothing  in  the  Old  Testa- 
ment that  could  have  led  him  to  employ  it.  The  appeal  sometimes 
made  to  Job  39,  2  (LXX)  is  not  justified,  for  that  grotesquely  con- 
fused passage  is  as  far  removed  as  possible  from  the  ideas  with  which 
the  author  of  Acts  is  here  dealing.  Three  verbs  in  succession 
e$i>Xa£as  ehvaas  e^aTroo-reXeis) l  are  there  used  in  the  same  way  with 
ci>5ipas,  the  meaning  being  clear  in  no  case;  there  can  thus  be  no 
question  of  a  phrase  becoming  current.  Luke  had  before  him  the 
1  The  second  and  third  of  these  are  variant  renderings  of  njr6tJTl  in  vs.  3. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  29 

words  Kroo  n  x^nn  jot?,  "loosing  the  bands  of  death."  The  quota- 
tion from  Ps.  was  obvious,  and  he  followed  the  LXX,  as  usual. 
The  NIP  he  of  course  rendered  literally. 

2,  33.    We  do  not  speak  of  "  pouring  out "  a  miracle,  but  rather  of 
"performing"  it.   We  may  suppose  that  the  Aramaic  was  KM  FDStf 
finyJDtjh  prvm  Jirox  H ,  the  formal  equivalent  of  our  Greek,  but  differ- 
ently intended.    The  feminine  suffix  joined  to  the  verb  did  not  refer 
to  the  following,  as  it  might  naturally  appear  to,  but  to  the  word 
"  spirit  "  (nn  ,  Trpefyuaros)  just  preceding.    The  writer  is  returning 
to  the  prophecy  of  Joel,  quoted  in  vs.  17.    The  translation  should 
have  been:  "  hath  poured  it  out,  as  ye  have  seen  and  heard."  1 

3,  20  f.    The  plural  in  /ccupoi  and  XPOVOJV  indicates  duration,  as  in 
the  original  Aramaic,   airo  7rpo<rco7rou  is  presumably  D"jj?  jp ,  wherever 
it  occurs.    In  this  case  it  is  merely  "  from,"  equivalent  to  Hebrew 
DXD  .     aTTOKaraffraffis  should  mean  here  "  establishment "  in  the 
sense  of  "fulfilment."    dTroKafltoTTj/zt  is  used  in  Job  8,  6  to  render 
D^,  a  verb  which  would  not  be  out  of  place  in  this  passage.   But  the 
translation  here  is  probably  still  closer;  the  verb  rendered  was  in  all 
likelihood  a  form  (presumably  the  haf'el)  of  Dip,  cf.  Dan.  9,  12 
w*?y  nan  IB>K  inn  nx  D£>i  ,  "and  he  established  his  words,  which  he 
spoke  against  us."    This  is  exactly  what  the  present  passage  re- 
quires, since  it  is  speaking  of  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy.    We  may 
suppose  that  the  Aramaic  was:  'DI  sr6s  hhfo  n  N;»b  ™»i?n  ^;ny  ^  • 
This  niopn  certainly  meant  "fulfilment";    but  as  it  is  a  word 
capable  of  the  meaning  "  restoration  "  in  this  context,2  Luke  ren- 
dered, as  in  other  similar  cases,  by  a  Greek  word  which  came  as  near 
as  possible  to  leaving  both  interpretations  open,  while  agreeing  in 
etymology  with  the  Aramaic  original.    This  is  perhaps  as  characteris- 
tic an  example  of  his  cautious  exactitude  as  could  be  found. 

3,  24.  Kcu  iravres  8k  ol  irpo<f>rJTai,  airo  Sct/zov^A  /cat  TUV  Kadeffi 
o<TOL  f\a\r]ffav  KO.I  Karrjyy€i\av  rds  -rinipas  rauras.  This  can  hardly 
pass  as  Greek.  The  nal  before  KaTriyjei^av  is  redundant;  the  phrase 

1  For  Aramaic  "  that  which,"  equivalent  to  "  as,"  *aB6,  etc.,  cf.  the  note  on  4,  22  ff., 
above. 

1  It  should  be  observed  that  this  of' el  in  the  northern  (Syriac)  dialect  is  very  often 
thus  used.  Notice,  for  example,  how  in  the  Syriac  Hex.  it  renders  inroKoBlffnuju.  in 
i  Esdr.  5,  2;  Job  33,  25;  Is.  i,  26  (Sym.,  Theod.);  Am.  5,  15  (Aq.,  Sym.,  Theod.). 


30  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

dro  .  .  .  Kadeffi  is  not  idiomatic.  Turned  word  for  word  into  Ara- 
maic it  reads:  J^NH  jwoi1  ttnam  £ko  n  pnra  ni  ta«3#  IP  KJ»JM  bi. 
"  and  all  the  prophets  who  spoke,  from  Samuel  onward  through  his 
successors,  announced  these  days."  The  Aramaic  is  entirely  idio- 
matic; even  the  conjunction  in  iP"prn  is  not  strange  in  Jewish  Ara- 
maic, introducing  the  apodosis  in  the  Hebrew  manner.  It  is  per- 
haps worthy  of  notice,  however,  that  this  \  might  very  easily  be  a 
dittograph  from  the  preceding,  seeing  that  the  two  juxtaposed 
verbs  would  appear  to  be  coordinate. 

4,  12.  AedofjLevov  iv  avdp&irois  is  too  literal.  The  Aramaic  was 
XKOX  rm  3VV,  "put  among  men";  nrr  is  very  often  the  equivalent 
of  && ,  in  all  the  Aramaic  dialects,  and  is  most  commonly  construed 
with  3 .  Characteristic  examples  are:  " I  put  my  bow  in  the  cloud," 
Gen.  9,  13,  Targ.  Onkelos,  Pesh.;  "  The  royal  crown  which  is  put 
on  (3)  his  head,"  Esth.  6,  8,  both  Targums;  "  He  found  that  he  had 
been  (put)  in  the  tomb  ('3  3Tp)  four  days  already,"  John  n,  17, 
Palest.  Syr. ;  "  [These  things]  they  put  in  the  midst  of  this  sanctu- 
ary," Nabataean  inscription  from  Puteoli  (Cooke,  N.  Sem.  Inscrs., 
p.  256). x  In  Old  Testament  usage,  God  "puts"  his  name  in  one 
place  or  another. 

The  article  rb  is  put  before  the  word  SeSojueVop  in  this  clause  just 
in  order  to  preserve  the  Aramaic  order  of  words,  and  at  the  same 
time  to  separate  df8o^€vov  from  ovpav6vl 

4,  16.  TVWTOV  is  Aramaic  JPT,  "notable,  remarkable,"  which 
is  what  the  context  requires.  "  Manifest "  will  not  do  at  all,  in 
view  of  <f>avfpov  at  the  end  of  the  clause. 

4,  36.  M€6epnr)V€v6iJ.evov  means,  I  think,  "  interpreted  euphemisti- 
cally." The  very  fact  that  a  name  is  interpreted  without  apparent 
reason  might  lead  us  to  suspect  that  something  is  wrong  with  it. 
Bar-Nebo  (Nebo  was  a  TB>,  devil)  was  not,  for  church  historians,  a 
desirable  name  for  such  a  saint  as  this  —  unless  by  means  of  inter- 
pretation the  reproach  could  be  removed.  That  the  interpretation 
was  far-fetched  made  no  difference;  whoever  heard  it  was  freed 
from  the  possibility  of  future  embarrassment  because  of  the  name. 

1  Cf .  further  Luke  1 2, 50,  "  Think  ye  that  I  came  to  put  (Bovvai)  peace  in  the  earth  ?  " 
also  15,  22,  "  Put  (S6rt)  a  ring  on  («is)  his  hand." 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  31 

A  somewhat  similar  case  is  13,  6-8.  Here  the  narrative  intro- 
duces a  certain  "  false  prophet  "  and  "  sorcerer  "  whose  name  was 
Bar- Jesus  (so  the  original  and  therefore,  of  necessity,  the  Greek 
translation).  But  at  the  next  mention  of  the  man,  his  name  is 
"  interpreted  "  (jueflepjui^euerai)  into  'EAivias.1  This  is  merely  a 
euphemistic  substitution;  there  is  no  need  to  suppose  —  nor  is  it 
probable  —  that  the  Greek  name  which  was  selected  stood  in  any 
sort  of  relation  to  the  Semitic  name.  An  unfortunate  nomen  atque 
omen  was  replaced  by  one  that  was  harmless,  that  is  all.  From  that 
time  on,  it  was  certain  that  the  false  prophet  would  be  known  as 
"  Elymas  the  Sorcerer,"  not  "  ~Rzx-Jesus  the  Sorcerer."  We  have 
abundant  evidence  of  the  strong  aversion  felt  to  such  collocations, 
and  the  euphemistic  substitution,  called  in  late  Hebrew  and  Jewish 
Aramaic  ^33  (eTri/cXT/o-is),  was  a  common  thing.2 

In  both  passages  it  seems  plain  that  the  "  interpretation  "  belongs 
to  the  translator,  not  to  the  Aramaic  document.  Only  because  of 
Luke's  fidelity  to  his  original  was  the  true  name  preserved  in  13,  6. 

5,  7.    This  would  be,  in  Aramaic:  'DI  rinnJN  r&jn  py#  r6na  mm. 

.....         -i .   i  •:  r         T  ;  •        T-;- 

The  rendering  is  typical  translation-Greek,  as  exact  as  it  could  be 
made.  The  5td<rr?7/iia  is  presumably  Luke's  own,  but  it  is  implied  in 
the  Aramaic,  which  is  precisely:  "  and  there  was  the  likeness  (as 
to  space)  of  three  hours,  and  his  wife  entered,"  etc.  Cf.  Luke  5,  i, 
12;  9,  28;  22,  59. 

5,  13.  Qv8ds  €T6\Aia  KoXkaadai  aurots,  "  no  one  dared  join  him- 
self to  them,"  is  immediately  and  flatly  contradicted  by  vs.  14, 
"  more  were  added  to  them,  .  .  .  multitudes  both  of  men  and 
women  " !  It  is  plain  that  we  have  here  a  mistranslation;  what  the 
writer  must  have  intended  to  say  is:  "no  one  dared  to  contend  with 

1  The  attempt,  made  by  many  scholars,  to  connect  the  reading  of  D,  Erot/*os,  with 
the  "A.TOfj.of  (?)  of  Jos.,  Antt.  xx,  7,  2  seems  to  me  mistaken  for  several  reasons.  Copy- 
ists very  often  miswrite  X  as  T,  and  vice  versa;  while  as  for  the  replacing  of  u  by  ot,  so 
frequent  in  Greek  MSS.,  Codex  D  is  even  capable  of  writing  /«)  icai  trd  k  rijs  TaXt- 
Xa£as  el;  in  John  7,  52!  D  therefore  gives  us  no  real  variant  here.  The  reading  of 
Niese's  edition  is  pretty  certainly  wrong,  moreover,  since  cnnov  and  O.TIMV  are  practi- 
cally identical  in  old  Greek  cursive  script,  and  Simon  is  by  far  the  more  probable  name. 

1  Observe  that  in  the  Peshitta  version  the  name  E&r-Jesus  was  not  even  permitted 
to  stand  in  vs.  6,  but  Bar-SAwwa  was  substituted  for  it! 


32  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

them."  More  than  one  Aramaic  root  could  supply  forms  capable  of 
both  of  these  meanings;  :np,  for  example,  is  a  very  good  possibility. 
In  Syriac,  the  ethpa'al  might  have  either  meaning.  The  Hebrew 
hif'il  means  "  join  ";  the  corresponding  Syriac  stem  means  "  con- 
tend." Perhaps  even  more  likely  is  nr6.  The  phrase  would  then 
have  been  finpj?  non^nn!? ,  the  infinitive  being  used  exactly  as  is  the 
same  form  in  late  Hebrew,  Dr6nn,  "contend."  But  in  the  northern 
(Syrian)  dialect  the  words  would  have  meant  "to  be  united  with 
them";  cf.  the  passage  cited  in  Payne  Smith:  i»r6nN  NBJJ  ina , 
"  they  were  united  into  one  people,"  and  the  root-meaning  (ibid.) 
of  Dr6 ,  consociavit. 

5,  17.  Preuschen:  "  avaarfa  ist  im  Zusammenhang  unmoglich." 
Wellhausen,  Analyse,  10:  "  avaa-ras  ist  sachlich  unmoglich.  Man 
erhebt  sich  um  zu  reden  oder  irgend  etwas  anderes  zu  tun,  aber 
nicht  um  voll  Leidenschaft  zu  werden.  Glanzend  hat  Blass  das 
sinnlose  Wort  in  *Awas  verbessert."  See  also  his  Noten,  p.  21. 
Blass  had  proposed  this  emendation,  introducing  the  name  of  the 
High  Priest  Annas,  in  the  Studien  u.  Kritiken,  1896,  p.  459.  But 
the  text  is  right  as  it  stands;  it  is  merely  the  omnipresent  Dj?,  which 
is  hardly  more  than  "  thereupon,  straightway,"  used  in  much  the 
same  way  as  the  unnecessary  ntj>,  r/p^aro.1  It  does  not  represent 
action  antecedent  in  time  to  that  of  the  following  verb,  the  two  are 
rather  coincident:  "  Then  they  started  up,  full  of  zeal,  and  laid 
then:  hands  on  the  apostles."  The  insertion  of  a  parenthetical  (cir- 
cumstantial) clause,  n8Mp  £p  Vim,  literally  "and  they  were  filled  with 
zeal,"  would  be  entirely  idiomatic;  compare  e.g.  Margolis,  Aramaic 
Language  of  the  Babylonian  Talmud,  §69,  b:  mm  &ny  srix  maa 
rryntjn  NS^I  xo^y  ^  TIB,  "in  the  evening  a  poor  man  came,  while 
everyone  was  busy,  and  there  was  none  to  hear  him,"  etc.  Such  a 
clause  would  have  been  rendered  here  in  just  the  words  which  we 
have,  €Tr\r]ff6r)crav  £17X01;,  the  D[?  having  been  translated  by  the  parti- 
ciple, as  usual  in  such  cases. 

5,  17.  H.O.VT6S  ol  avv  a.irr$,  77  ovaa  cupecns  ruv  2addovKaicov. 
Wendt:  "  Das  Part.  ^  ovva,  statt  ol  fores,  ist  attrahiert  vom 
Pradikat."  I  believe  he  is  mistaken  in  this.  In  the  two  passages 

1  See  for  example  Dalman,  Worte  Jesu,  18  f. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  33 

(5,  17  and  13,  i)  where  this  construction  occurs  it  is  merely  Luke's 
careful  way  of  reproducing  the  Aramaic  rvx  (the  word  JVN  is  exactly 
oixrid).  The  phrase  was  this:  ^Nj^nv  n  KrrYOn  .TJVK  V!T,  "who  were 
the  sect  of  the  Sadducees."  See  the  note  on  13,  i. 

5,  28.  The  infinitive  absolute,  as  idiomatic  in  Aramaic  as  in 
Hebrew.1  The  outwardly  similar  construction  found  in  23,  14  and 
28,  10  (concrete  nouns)  is  essentially  different. 

7,  38.  Is  it  not  likely  that  |»n  ^D,  "words  of  life"  was  acciden- 
tally miswritten  pn  jta  (|jn  }k>),  "  living  words  "  ?  Or  is  it  merely 
the  rendering  that  is  at  fault  ?  The  reference  is  plainly  to  such  pas- 
sages as  Ezek.  20, 10  f. :  "I  brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt, 
and  into  the  wilderness;  and  I  gave  them  my  statutes  and  showed 
them  my  judgements,  which  if  a  man  do,  he  shall  live  by  them."  Also 
Ezek.  33,  15;  Lev.  18,  5;  Deut.  30,  15-19,  etc. 

7,  52.  Preuschen:  "  Der  Ausdruck  TOV  5ucuou  fur  den  Messias 
ware  Juden  kaum  verstandlich  gewesen."  This  statement,  unless 
hastily  made,  shows  a  very  imperfect  acquaintance  with  the  Jewish 
conception  of  the  Messiah.  His  chief  office  was  to  establish  justice 
in  the  earth,  Is.  42,  3  f.;  cf.  also  53,  n,  etc.,  and  the  i7th  and  i8th 
of  the  Psalms  of  Solomon.  See  also  the  various  designations  of  the 
Coming  One  as  "  the  righteous  Messiah  "  (Dalman,  Worte  Jesu, 
240  f.). 

7,  53.  The  curious  phrase,  "unto  ordinances  of  angels,"  els  Siartryds 
a.'Y'YeKuv.    The  els  represents  f>,  meaning  "  according  to,"  or  "  by." 
"  Ye  who  received  the  Law  pa«^»  *jTOptt&,  by  the  ordering,  or  ad- 
ministration, of  angels."    For  the   use  of  the  preposition  compare 
for  example  Ps.  119,  91,  *pBBBtoi>,  "according  to  thine  ordinances"; 
119,  154,  ^rniD&6,  "according  to  thy  word,"  and  many  others. 
Luke's  rendering  here  is  not  merely  too  literal,  it  is  incorrect. 

8,  7.    The  grammatical  difficulty  of  the  first  clause  is  sufficiently 
familiar.    Preuschen  remarks  that  the  text  is  "  unheilbar  verdor- 
ben  ";  see  his  commentary  and  that  of  Wendt  for  the  catalogue  of 
attempts,  ancient  and  modern,  to  improve  the  reading;  notice  also 
the  [Trapd]  TroXXois  of  Codex  Bezae.    In  Aramaic,  however,  the  sus- 
pended construction  is  not  unusual,  the  anacoluthon  being  avoided 

1  Dalman,  Worte  Jesu,  27  f.,  exaggerates  its  rarity. 


34  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

by  the  introduction  of  a  suffixed  pronoun  in  the  latter  part  of  the 
clause.  For  example:  i>p3  prov  pruo  PIT  1in  pn«  n  PA>K  p  p'ao  n 
ipaj  ai .  This  would  almost  inevitably  be  rendered  into  Greek  by 
the  exact  form  of  words  which  we  have  before  us.  The  translator 
would  gain  nothing,  but  only  make  his  Greek  worse,  by  rendering 
jimo.  His  version  was  not  in  the  least  ambiguous,  it  was  merely 
translation-Greek. 

9,  2.  "  Any  belonging  to  the  Way."  A  genuine  Semitic  locution, 
which  seems  to  have  been  taken  over  by  the  Gentile  Christians  from 
the  speech  of  their  Jewish  brethren.  Thus  Talm.  Rosh  Hashana  itja> 
•uayn  '3T1D  ifcrpa,  "they  separated  themselves  from  the  ways  (reli- 
gion) of  the  congregation,"  i.e.,  they  became  heretics.  So  also  in 
old  Syriac:  urha  d'Taiydyuthd,  "  the  religion  (literally  way)  of  the 
Arabs  ";  urha  damshihd,  "  the  Christian  religion  ";  other  examples 
in  Payne  Smith,  Thesaurus.  So  too  in  Arabic,  as-sabil,  "  the  way," 
is  used,  without  any  further  description  or  qualification,  for  the  true 
(Mohammedan)  religion.  The  adopted  Gentile  use  in  19,  9,  23,  etc. 

9,  316.  This  is  probably  the  idiom  which  is  so  common  in  the  Old 
Testament:  Hebrew  mi  ^n ,  Aramaic  ttiDl^m,  "constantly  in- 
creased," "  abounded  more  and  more,"  and  the  like,  i  Sam.  14,  19, 
"  The  tumult  kept  growing  greater  and  greater  "  (iropevofj-evos  ... 
€Tr\r)6vvfv) ;  2  Sam.  3,  i,  "David  grew  stronger  and  stronger  (iiroptv- 
ero  K<LL  eKparcLLovTo),  while  the  house  of  Saul  grew  weaker  and  weaker 
/ecu  lyotfem);  Gen.  8,  5,  "The  water  constantly  diminished 
^XarrowOro) ;  and  a  great  many  similar  cases. 

9,  32.    Peter  passed  through  "  the  whole  (region),"  6id  TTCLVTUV, 

is  often  used  thus  absolutely,  when  the  context  makes 
the  meaning  evident.  For  a  Judean  writer,  to  whom  Palestine  was 
"  the  land  "  (cf.  Njn«  ^  in  n,  28,  discussed  above),  this  was  doubt- 
less the  usual  expression  in  such  a  context. 

10,  ii ;    ii,  5.    The  unusual  apxn  in  these  two  passages  is  the 
rendering  of  the  much  more  common  Aramaic  e*n,  "extremity,  cor- 
ner," etc.   The  participle  Kadi^evov  might  represent  either  the  root 
23"i^  or  ^B>. 

10,  30.  "On  (dTro)  the  fourth  day  (i.e.,  three  days  ago),  at  (M«'xpO 
this  hour."  This  is  not  a  permissible  idiom  in  Greek,  where  the 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  35 

words  would  necessarily  mean  "  for  four  days  up  to  this  hour."  It 
is  perfectly  good  Semitic,  however:  NT  Kny.e*  nj?  **???}  NI?^  ?PJ  t^at 
is,  "  on  the  fourth  day  back,  reckoning  up  to  this  same  hour." 

10,  36  f.  T6v  \6yov  ov  aire<TT€i\6v ,  K.T.\.  Reduced  to  Aramaic 
this  would  sound  much  better,  since  the  suspended  construction  is 
usual  in  that  language.  It  is  possible,  too,  that  the  last  clause  of 
vs.  36  was  originally  intended  quite  differently. 

If  the  Aramaic  had  been  jne*  T3  D^  "IBID  htnto*  ^  rb&  n  Nnk) 
N;p  too  &un  KrpBto,  it  certainly  might  have  been  understood  as  we 
have  it  in  Luke's  word-for-word  rendering.  But  it  could  also  be 
translated  as  follows:  "As  for  the  word  which  the  Lord  of  All1  sent 
to  the  children  of  Israel,  proclaiming  good  tidings  of  peace  through 
Jesus  Christ:  ye  know  that  which  took  place  in  all  Judea,"  etc. 
This  is  at  all  events  faultless  Aramaic  idiom.  In  favor  of  it  may 
also  be  said:  (i)  The  title  xio  too,  Kvpws  iravruv,  according  to  all 
Jewish  usage  belongs  to  the  Lord  of  Hosts,  the  God  of  Israel;  and 
such  titles  are  not  easily  given  a  new  application.  The  Syriac  equi- 
valent, Mare  Kul,  is  a  standing  designation  of  the  One  God.  In 
Hebrew  we  have  the  titles  "  Ruler  over  All  "  (i  Chr.  29,  12,  etc.), 
"  Maker  of  All  "  (Jer.  10,  16;  51,  19),  probably  "  Captain  of  All  " 
0>an  ib>,  Dan.  n,  2),2  and  "  Lord  of  All  the  Earth  "  Qosh.  3,  u, 
etc.).  In  Aramaic  we  have  also,  as  standing  titles  of  Yahwe,  "  Lord 
of  the  Heavens  "  (Elephantine  Papyri,  Dan.  5,  23,  etc.),  "  Lord  of 
the  World  "  (Targums,  passim),  "  Lord  of  All  the  World  "  (Targ. 
Micah  4,  13),  Lord  of  the  Worlds,"  whence  Arabic  Rabb  al-lAla- 
min;  cf.  also  Ps.  145,  13,  Tobit  13,  6,  10,  etc.3  It  is  intrinsically 
improbable,  then,  that  the  title  "  Lord  of  All "  would  have  been 
applied  to  Jesus  in  a  Judean  Aramaic  document  of  the  first  century. 
(2)  Again,  it  is  to  be  observed  that  what  is  especially  emphasized 
in  this  whole  passage  is  the  purpose  of  the  all-powerful  God.  He  is 

1  Literally,  "  this  Lord  of  All  ";  see  the  note  on  i,  5,  above,  and  cf.  Dan.  2,  32,  etc. 
The  use  of  such  a  demonstrative  pronoun  is  common  in  the  Judean  dialect.  Here, 
moreover,  there  is  a  very  obvious  reason  for  its  use,  since  in  the  preceding  verse  it  had 
been  said  that  the  God  of  Israel  is  also  the  God  of  all  nations. 

1  "ifc?  inserted  by  conjecture  after  TJP ;  see  Journ.  Am.  Or.  Soc.  25  (1004),  pp.  310  f. 

3  The  "  Lord  of  all  "  in  Rom.  10, 12  is  of  course  not  a  title,  nor  to  be  compared  with 
the  present  passage. 


36  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

the  God  of  all  nations  (vss.  34,  35);  this  Jesus  was  anointed  of  God 
(38) ;  God  was  with  him  (ibid .) ;  God  raised  him  up  (40) ;  his  wit- 
nesses were  chosen  of  God  (41) ;  and  they  testify  that  God  ordained 
him  (42).  This  purpose  of  emphasis  would  be  naturally  served  by 
the  position  of  the  subject,  "  the  Lord  of  All,"  at  the  end  of  its 
clause  in  vs.  36. 

For  the  case  of  dp^d/ze^os  in  vs.  37,  see  above,  on  i,  22.  As  for  the 
rbv  \6yov  8i>  airiffT€i\€v,  at  the  beginning  of  vs.  36,  the  noun  is  to 
be  taken  as  the  direct  object  of  otiare  (vs.  37). 

10,  40.  "EdoK€v  avrov  tfjujxivri  yeveadai,  i.e.,   rpmnr6  rtoiV.    The 
same  idiom  in  14,  3;   cf.  also  2,  27  (quoted  from  LXX),  and  the 
many  examples  in  the  Greek  O.T.   Well  known  as  a  Semitism ;  Blass 
Gramm.,  §  69,  4. 

u,  4.   On  dp^d/zevos,  see  above,  on  i,  i;   i,  22,  etc. 

11,6.  The  combination  narcvbovv  KCU  eldov  (after  aTeviaasfy  would 
be  remarkable  as  a  specimen  of  Greek  style.  But  this,  exactly,  is  a 
favorite  Aramaic  idiom,  rPTrn  JT^snpx .  See,  for  example,  the  Targ. 
Eccles.  9,  ii :  rprm  n^anox  (not  in  the  Hebrew);  Targ.  Is.  42,  18: 
ftrn  ^3DDN  (not  so  in  the  Hebrew);  cf.  also  Dan.  7,  8,  etc. 

n,  16.  "I  remembered  the  word  of  the  Lord,  how  that  he  said, 
John  indeed  baptized  with  water,"  etc.  This  was  written  by  the 
author  of  i,  4,  obviously,  and  brings  incidental  confirmation  of  my 
demonstration  (see  below,  page  59)  that  the  Aramaic  document 
used  by  Luke  begins  at  i,  ib. 

n,  21.  Ecu  fa  xdp  Kvpiov  /ucr'  abruv.  This  is  another  plain 
Semitism.  Cf.  Luke  i,  66,  etc.,  as  well  as  the  many  passages  in  the 
Greek  O.T. 

11,  22.    "  The  word  was  heard  into  the  ears  of  the  church."    No 
Greek  writer  would  ever  have  perpetrated  this  —  unless  he  had 
wished  to  create  the  impression  that  he  was  using  a  Semitic  "source." 
Even  then,  he  would  doubtless  have  used  the  standing  LXX  phrase, 
Iv  rots  &ffi. 

12,  ii.    "  Expectation  "  is  too  weak  for  this  context,  which  speaks 
of  that  from  which  Peter  was  delivered.   Hpo<r8oida  rendered  Kna^no , 
which  ordinarily  means  "  thought,  opinion,  calculation,"  and  the 
like.    But  the  word  is  not  infrequently  used,  in  Hebrew,  Aramaic, 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  37 

and  Syriac,  to  mean  "  plot,  machination"  Thus  Esther  8,  3 :  Esther 
besought  the  king  to  bring  to  nought  that  which  Haman  "  had 
plotted  (apn)  against  the  Jews  ";  Jer.  18,  18:  "  They  said,  Come,  let 
us  lay  plots  against  Jeremiah  ";  Ps.  52,  4:  "  Thou  plottest  mischief 
with  thy  tongue  ";  and  many  other  passages,  both  in  the  Hebrew 
O.T.  and  in  the  Targums.1  The  "  Zamzummim  "  of  Deut.  2,  20, 
interpreted  as  "  plotters  "  (Heb.  DDT,  "  devise  evil  "),  are  called  in 
the  Targum  pjat^n .  An  example  in  Syriac  is  John  of  Ephesus  18,19 
(1,17):  "  treacherous  plotting" 

12,  20.   0ujuo/iax£j>  is  presumably  ton .    This  meant,  in  the  speech 
of  Judea,  "  angry,"  literally  "  burning  ";  thus  also  in  the  Hebrew  of 
the  Old  Testament.    But  in  the  North  Syrian  dialect  the  verb,  used 
chiefly  in  the  reflexive  stem,  means  "  contend  against,  strive  with." 
Luke's  rendering  is  a  model  of  exactness,  but  the  Judean  meaning, 
"  angry,"  is  the  correct  one  here. 

13,  i.    The  phrase,  Kara  TT\V  ovvav  ^KK\rjffiav ,  "in  the  church 
which  is  (or,  was)  there."    This  is  another  example  of  the  transla- 
tion of  JVK  ;  see  the  note  on  5, 17,  above.   The  Aramaic  was  probably 
simply  (or  ,TJVN)  rpK  n  Nrnya ,  no  accompanying  adverb  being  neces- 
sary, since  it  was  made  evident  by  the  context.    The  commentators 
sometimes  compare  Rom.  13,  i,  also  Acts  28,  17,  etc.;   but  these 
passages  are  not  really  parallel  cases,  since  in  them  the  participle, 
or  its  equivalent,  is  indispensable.    Other  passages  in  the  Aramaic 
half  of  Acts  where  JTN  seems  to  be  rendered  are  n,  22  and  14,  13. 

13,  22.  "  He  raised  up  for  them  David  as  their  king  (els  /Sao-iXe'a)," 
ijfo!?  T-n  jir6  D'j?N . 

13,  24.  This  is  altogether  too  literal  a  translation  of  'niJTO  Dnp  jo, 
"  before  his  coming."  See  the  note  on  3,  20,  above. 

13,  25.  "  As  John  was  ending  (literally,  fulfilling)  his  course." 
'Eir\fipov  is  the  translation  of  Aramaic  D?>e*;  cf.  the  note  on  2,  i, 
above. 

J3>  25.  "Who  do  ye  suppose  that  I  am?"  ri  lp*  vTrovoeire  elvai', 
It  can  hardly  be  questioned  that  ri,  rather  than  T'LV a,  has  the  pre- 
sumption in  its  favor  as  the  original  reading.  The  fact  that  the 

1  The  word  ktrivoia  in  8,  22  probably  renders  this  same  Aramaic  word.  Apparently 
there  also  the  translation  is  too  colorless. 


38  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

neuter  pronoun  is  "  nicht  ertraglich  "  (Blass,  in  Wendt,  p.  210) 
makes  the  case  all  the  more  interesting.  This  is  the  regular  Ara- 
maic idiom.  No  better  illustration  could  be  asked  than  that  which 
is  furnished  by  the  Lewis1  and  Cur.  Syriac  renderings  of  Matt.  16, 
13;  Mk.  8,  27;  Lk.  9,  18:  "  Who  do  men  say  that  I  am  ?  "  using 
only  mdnd  ("  what  ?  "),  in  spite  of  the  riva  in  every  passage. 

13,  25.   OVK  dul  €70),  "I  am  not  he."   It  is  worthy  of  note  that  the 
Aramaic  (not  Hebrew)  idiom  simply  repeats  the  pronoun  of  the 
first  person;  "I  am  he"  is  KJN  NJX.    Thus  e.g.  the  Syriac  in  John  4, 
26:  "  I  that  speak  with  thee  am  /." 

14,  17.    There  is  apparently  a  mistranslation  of  some  sort  here. 
It  is  no  more  agreeable  to  usage  in  Aramaic  or  Greek  to  speak  of 
'  filling  hearts  with  food  '  than  it  is  in  English.    Perhaps  originally 
"Filling  your  hearts  with  all  gladness"  (cf.  Rom.  15,  13);    and 
confusion  of  ^20  with  ^yo  "  food,"  since  the  nun  of  the  preposition 
was  frequently  assimilated  at  this  time  in  Judea,  but  very  rarely  else- 
where.   The  verb  N;>»  might  of  course  be  construed  either  with  p  or 
with  direct  object. 

14,  27;  15,  4.    The  phrase  off  a  eirolrjaev  6  6eos  juer'  avruv.    On  the 
difference  of  opinion  among  scholars  as  to  the  meaning  of  this,  see 
Thayer,  Lexicon,  s.  v.  juerd.     It  is,  however,  merely  translation- 
Greek,  meaning:  "  what  God  had  done  to  (orfor)  them."    There  is 
no  idea  of  cooperation  in  the  phrase,  nor  even  of  accompaniment. 
This  is  the  regular  idiom  in  all  branches  of  Aramaic.    Thus,  an  in- 
scription from  Tarsus,  fifth  century  B.C.  (Journ.  Am.  Or.  Soc.  35, 
Part  4) :  "  Whoever  does  ("ny)  any  harm  to  (oy)  this  image,"  etc. 
Dan.  3,  32:  "  the  wonders  which  God  has  wrought  upon  me  "  (*ay 
'Dy).    Assemani,  Bill.  Or.  Ill,  ii,  486:  "  the  miracle  which  was  per- 
formed on  their  king  "  (firota  Dy  "ayn»).    The  idiom  is  also  found 
in  Hebrew;  see  Deut.  i,  30;   10,  21,  etc. 

15,  1 6-1 8.    Luke  always  uses  the  Greek  Bible  for  his  Old  Testa- 
ment quotations;  see  my  Aramaic  Gospels,  298  ff.    In  this  case,  we 
do  not  know  to  what  extent  the  Greek  varied  from  the  Aramaic  —  or 
rather,  Hebrew — which  actually  lay  before  him.    Rabbi  Akiba  and 
his  fellows  had  not  yet  set  up  a  "  standard  "  text  of  the  Prophets;  the 

1  The  Lewis  Syriac  in  Matt.  16,  13  follows  a  different  text,  to  be  sure. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  39 

author  of  this  Aramaic  document  was  at  liberty  to  select  the  reading 
which  best  suited  his  purpose;  and  the  LXX  rendering  of  Am.  9, 
ii  f.  certainly  represented  a  varying  Hebrew  text.  But  even  our 
Massoretic  Hebrew  would  have  served  the  present  purpose  admir- 
ably, since  it  predicted  that  "  the  tabernacle  of  David,"  i.e.  the 
church  of  the  Messiah,  would  "  gain  possession  of  all  the  nations 
which  are  called  by  the  name  [of  the  God  of  Israel]."  Cf.  vs.  14, 
where  we  are  told  what  this  quotation  was  expected  to  prove: 
6  deos  eir€ffK€\l/a.TO  Xa/3e»'  e£  edvuv  \aov  TU>  ovo^ari  avrov. 

As  for  the  troublesome  ending  of  vs.  18,  1  believe  that  the  explana- 
tion is  this:  Instead  of  nt*T  nfety,  as  in  the  Massor.  Hebrew,  the 
reading  of  our  document  was  D^iyo  ntft  jrnio  —  a  very  natural  im- 
provement; cf.  especially  the  d</>'  fipepuv  dpxcucojc  in  vs.  7.  Luke,  in 
giving  the  quotation  in  Greek,  wrote  out  his  LXX  word  for  word, 
as  usual.  Arriving  at  the  end  of  the  verse,  instead  of  rendering 
ymo  by  yvupifav  he  was  able,  by  the  periphrasis  TTCH.&V  TO.VTO. 
yvwara.,  "  making  these  things  known"  to  be  faithful  both  to  his 
Greek  Bible  (iroi&v  ravra)  and  to  the  document  which  he  was  trans- 
lating. This  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  Luke;  cf.  for  example 
the  notes  on  2,  i  and  2,  24,  above. 

15,  23.  Harnack,  Lukas  der  Arzt,  154,  speaks  of  the  "  merk- 
wiirdige  Ausdruck  01  Trpeo-jSurepoi  d5«X0ot,"  and  Preuschen,  Komm., 
declares  this  beginning  of  the  address  "  unertraglich."  But  it  is 
faultless  Aramaic  idiom.  In  the  phrase  N»ns  N»e^#pi  K»rv^,  the  word 

T  --          T-      •   '-;        T-    •    :  ' 

"  brethren  "  would  naturally  refer  to  both  the  nouns  preceding;  if  it 
had  been  intended  to  refer  to  the  "  elders  "  alone,  it  would  have 
stood  between  this  word  and  the  conjunction  i.  From  the  Christian 
Aramaic  (Syriac)  which  we  know,  it  is  evident  that  in  early  church 
usage  this  apposed  "  brethren  "  was  very  common. 

15,  28.  HXrjv  TOVTUV  TUV  eTr&vayKes.  Professor  G.  F.  Moore  has 
suggested  (orally)  what  seems  to  me  the  correct  explanation  of  this 
improbable  phrase.  The  Greek  originally  read:  tbo&v  .  .  . 
ir\tov  €7rm0e0-0(H  viJ.lv  jSdpos  irX^f  TOVTWV  eiravajKes 
K.T.I.,  the  r&v  being  due  to  dittography.1  iira.va.yKes  dTr&eotfai  ren- 


1  Clem.  Alex,  seems  to  have  read  in  just  this  way  in  his  Stromata  iv,  16,  97;  this 
reading  of  his  was  probably  obtained  merely  by  accident  or  conjecture,  however. 


40  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

ders  nj>rnriN^  Tjny,  which  according  to  Moore  was  probably  the 
reading  of  the  Aramaic  document  in  this  passage. 

The  translation-Greek  continues  to  the  end  of  15,  35,  which  prob- 
ably formed  the  original  conclusion  of  the  Aramaic  narrative  (see 
below).1  With  verse  36  the  character  of  the  language  changes  com- 
pletely, so  far  as  its  structure  is  concerned,  and  the  Aramaic  idiom 
does  not  appear  again,  even  for  a  single  paragraph.  Two  other 
facts  deserve  especial  attention.  The  first  is,  that  the  author  of  the 
Greek  half  of  the  book  composed  his  narrative  as  the  continuation  of 
the  Aramaic  document.  This  is  sufficiently  obvious,  not  only  from 
the  way  in  which  vs.  36  takes  its  start  from  vs.  35,  but  also  from  the 
correspondence  of  the  details  of  the  narrative  in  15,  36-16,  5  with 
those  in  the  chapters  immediately  preceding;  a  relationship  much 
too  close  to  be  accidental.  The  allusions  to  the  churches  already 
established  in  Asia  are  plainly  intended  as  the  sequel  of  chapters  13 
and  14;  16,  4  is  only  comprehensible  after  reading  15,  1-29;  15,  38 
refers  to  13, 13;  the  speech  of  Paul  in  17,  22-31  seems  to  be  modeled 
on  that  in  14,  15-17,  though  the  resemblance  may  be  merely  acci- 
dental (see  below);  and  there  are  other  striking  correspondences. 
This  is  of  course  just  what  we  should  expect  in  view  of  the  remark- 
able uniformity  of  vocabulary  and  phraseology  in  all  parts  of  the 
book,  showing  (as  already  noted  above)  that  the  translator  of  the 
first  half  was  the  author  of  the  second.  The  other  fact  deserving 
notice  is  this,  that  the  author,  translator,  and  compiler  was  a  man 
singularly  faithful  to  his  sources.  He  disliked  to  alter,  even  slightly, 
the  document  in  his  hands,  even  where  he  believed  its  statements 
to  be  mistaken,  and  where  he  found  himself  obliged  to  contra- 
dict them.  Acts  i,  3  (the  "  forty  days  "),  for  instance,  is  flatly 
opposed  to  the  statements  in  Luke  24  (see  below),  and  the  statement 
in  Acts  i,  4  ("  which  ye  heard  from  me  ")  was  certainly  recognized 
as  erroneous  by  the  author  of  Luke  3, 16.  As  we  have  seen,  the  name 
of  the  sorcerer  Bar- Jesus  was  allowed  to  stand  in  13,  6,  though  the 

1  Attention  may  be  called  at  this  point  to  the  evidence  furnished  by  the  foregoing 
investigation  that  the  text  of  Acts  which  has  come  down  to  us,  especially  in  Cod.  B 
and  its  nearest  associates,  is  very  old  and  correct.  The  later  and  all  but  worthless 
text  of  Cod.  Bezae  and  its  associates  I  hope  to  make  the  subject  of  a  future  study. 


THE  ARAMAIC  SOURCE  IN  ACTS  41 

substitute  "  Elymas  "  was  used  thereafter.  The  many  cases  of  very- 
faithful  translation  noted  above,  in  passages  where  a  somewhat 
freer  rendering  would  have  saved  the  translator  from  real  difficulties, 
are  in  the  same  line  of  evidence.  But  perhaps  the  most  striking 
illustration  of  the  kind  is  afforded  by  the  point  where  the  transition 
is  made  from  the  Aramaic  history  to  Luke's  own  narrative.  Luke 
did  not  believe  that  Silas  returned  to  Jerusalem  as  narrated  in  15,  33, 
but  rather  (see  vss.  36  and  40),  that  he  remained  at  Antioch  until 
the  time  when  he  set  out  with  Paul  on  the  missionary  journey.  It 
would  have  been  easy  to  omit  vs.  33,  or  to  add  a  harmonizing  state- 
ment, as  some  less  scrupulous  editor  of  the  text  has  actually  done  in 
the  vs.  34  which  is  now  omitted  from  all  critical  editions.  But 
Luke,  as  usual,  gave  his  source  the  word,  and  would  not  falsify  it.1 

1  I  mean,  of  course,  that  this  was  his  way  of  dealing  with  a  unique  document  of  great 
importance  which  he  was  translating.  No  one  will  doubt  that  he  was  quite  ready  to 
edit,  to  omit,  and  to  supplement  with  his  own  freely  composed  material,  wherever  these 
activities  were  in  place.  He  may  have  made  numerous  slight  editorial  additions  here, 
though  this  does  not  seem  to  me  a  necessary  supposition,  and  I  do  not  believe  that  it 
would  be  possible  to  recognize  them.  Professor  J.  H.  Ropes  has  given  me  the  very 
plausible  suggestion,  for  instance,  that  the  list  of  the  apostles  in  i,  13  is  Luke's  own 
addition,  since  it  so  closely  resembles  his  list  in  Lk.  6,  14  f.  But  the  Aramaic  docu- 
ment can  hardly  have  been  without  such  a  list  at  this  point,  in  view  of  the  episode 
which  follows.  Moreover,  Luke's  own  list  was  certainly  derived  from  a  Semitic  source. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  SECOND  HALF  OF  ACTS 
§  i.  THE  HOMOGENEITY  OF  II  ACTS 

It  is  beyond  controversy  that  the  general  impression  made  by  the 
second  half  of  the  Book  of  Acts  is  one  of  homogeneity.  Phraseology, 
literary  style,  point  of  view  of  the  writer,  and  mode  of  treatment  of 
the  material,  are  noticeably  the  same  throughout  chapters  16-28;  it 
would  be  quite  futile  for  any  one  to  attempt  to  demonstrate  the 
contrary,  in  any  of  these  particulars.  Nevertheless  the  unity  of  this 
half  of  Acts  has  long  been  called  in  question,  perhaps  by  a  majority 
of  the  best  scholars,  and  for  reasons  which  are  obvious.1  The  book 
of  Acts  as  a  whole  is  plainly  composite;  the  "  Hebraizing  "  character 
of  the  opening  chapters,  in  contrast  with  the  smooth  Greek  of  the 
last  chapters,  has  long  been  the  subject  of  comment.  It  is  the  style 
of  these  opening  chapters  that  most  resembles  that  of  the  Third 
Gospel;  and  the  introductory  words,  mentioning  Theophilus  and 
referring  to  the  "  former  treatise,"  are  inseparably  welded  to  the 
following  history  (see  below).  The  Chris tology  of  the  early  chap- 
ters, moreover,  could  not  easily  be  attributed  to  a  Gentile  companion 
of  Paul.  No  theory  of  translation  of  documents  has  seemed  to  give 
any  help  (especially  as  it  has  always  been  taken  for  granted  that  the 
sources  of  the  Third  Gospel  were  Greek  sources),  nor  has  there 
seemed  to  be  any  way  of  establishing  such  a  theory.  Then  was 
added  the  riddle  of  the  "  We-sections,"  giving  such  an  inviting 
opportunity  for  theories  of  composition.  Furthermore,  Acts  15  was 
felt  to  be  in  disagreement  with  Gal.  2,  so  much  so  that  it  was  hardly 
conceivable  that  Paul's  travelling  companion  could  have  written  it. 
Yet  Acts  15  could  not  be  separated  from  chapters  13  f.  and  16,  1-5. 

1  In  the  sequel,  "  I  Acts  "  is  used  for  chaps,  i,  1-15,  35,  and  "  II  Acts  "  for  15, 
36-28,  31. 

4* 


THE  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  SECOND  HALF  OF  ACTS        43 

Hence  also,  apparently,  the  necessity  of  separating  the  "  travel- 
document  "  from  the  preceding  account.  The  fact  that  portions  of 
the  narrative  are  plainly  untrustworthy  as  a  record  of  events,  while 
other  portions  are  as  evidently  historical,  also  seemed  to  some  to  give 
a  starting  point  for  theories  of  composite  authorship.  Finally,  the 
supposed  necessity  of  postulating  a  late  date  for  the  entire  work  — 
the  Third  Gospel  being  later  than  Mark  and  Matthew,  and  Acts 
later  than  the  Gospel  —  gave  support  to  the  view  that  at  least  the 
"  travel-document  "  of  II  Acts  was  an  older  source  incorporated  in 
the  main  work.  After  a  beginning  of  analysis  had  thus  been  made, 
there  was  no  obvious  halting  place;  it  was  simply  a  question  of  who 
should  be  most  ingenious  and  plausible  in  discovering  joints,  altera- 
tions, and  redactional  patches. 

The  "  We-sections  "  —  to  begin  with  these  —  present  no  difficulty 
when  the  fact  of  Luke's  translation  of  the  Aramaic  document  is 
recognized.  The  reason  for  the  employment  of  the  first  person  is 
merely  this,  that  the  author  of  the  account  himself  took  part  in  some 
of  the  events  which  are  described,  and  was  historian  enough  to  feel 
the  importance  of  indicating  the  fact,  though  he  does  it  in  a  very 
modest  way.  In  the  portions  of  the  narrative  in  which  the  third 
person  is  used,  in  contexts  where  we  should  have  expected  the 
author  to  indicate  his  participation  if  he  had  really  been  present,  it 
is  most  natural  to  suppose  that  he  was  not  himself  a  participant  in 
the  events,  but  obtained  his  information  from  others.  Eduard  Nor- 
den,  Agnostos  Theos,  317-324,  shows  that  the  contemporary  litera- 
ture, both  Greek  and  Roman,  contains  numerous  exact  parallels  to 
II  Acts  in  this  regard,  and  that  if  more  of  the  writings  of  the  time 
had  been  preserved  we  should  doubtless  have  had  many  other 
examples.  The  demonstration  is  unnecessary,  to  be  sure,  since  this 
has  always  and  everywhere  been  the  most  natural  way  of  composing 
an  unpretentious  and  bona  fide  narrative  of  events  partially  wit- 
nessed by  the  writer;  and  it  is  such  a  narrative  which  we  have 
before  us. 

The  point  at  which  Luke's  use  of  the  first  person  begins,  16, 10, 
seems  to  make  it  plain  that  he  joined  Paul's  company  at  Troas;  and 
we  know  from  vss.  12-17  that ne  went  on  with  the  others  to  Philippi 


44  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

and  remained  there  with  them.  In  the  events  narrated  in  vss.  18-39 
Luke  of  course  took  no  part,  and  the  first  person  therefore  could  not 
have  been  used  by  him.  When  we  read  "  the  brethren,"  rather  than 
"  us,"  in  vs.  40,  it  is  possible  to  conclude  that  Paul  and  Silas  left 
Philippi  without  seeing  Luke  after  their  release  from  prison;  but  it 
is  quite  as  likely  that  his  modesty  (so  abundantly  attested)  is  the 
true  reason  for  his  failure  to  include  himself  expressly.  In  17, 1-20, 4 
the  total  absence  of  the  first  person,  where  it  might  reasonably  be 
expected  from  the  usage  elsewhere  in  the  document,  is  noticeable; 
and  it  can  hardly  be  accidental  that  it  is  on  the  return  of  Paul  and 
his  party  to  Philippi  that  the  author's  "  we  "  begins  again  to  be 
employed,  in  20,  5  f.  It  is  safe  to  conclude  that  Luke  did  not  go 
with  the  others  through  Macedonia  and  Greece,  and  through  the 
other  journeyings  described  in  17,  1-20,  5,  but  remained  in  Phi- 
lippi. This  part  of  his  account  he  composed  on  the  basis  of  oral 
information  obtained  from  his  friends.1  From  this  time  on,  how- 
ever, he  seems  always  to  have  been  a  member  of  Paul's  party,  when- 
ever the  apostle  was  accompanied  by  a  group  of  his  helpers.  There 
was  of  course  no  opportunity  or  excuse  for  using  the  first  person 
plural  in  20, 17-38.  The  same  is  true  in  21, 19-26,  32,  the  account 
of  the  imprisonment  and  trial  of  Paul; z  only  a  writer  with  an  undue 
sense  of  his  own  importance  would  have  intruded  himself  here,  where 
he  played  no  part  in  the  events  narrated.3  In  27,  1-28,  15  Luke 
had  the  opportunity  to  tell  in  some  detail  the  story  of  the  journey  to 
Italy,  and  especially  of  the  shipwreck;  a  series  of  happenings  of 
which  he  remembered  (naturally  enough !)  many  striking  incidents. 
Phraseology  and  literary  style,  as  well  as  the  close  connection  with 

1  Judging  from  the  scale  on  which  the  history  is  written  where  Luke  was  an  eye- 
witness, he  would  have  given  us  very  much  more  than  this  meager  sketch  of  a  few 
pages  (covering  seven  or  eight  years,  at  least,  and  including  by  far  the  most  important 
parts  of  the  great  missionary  journeys!)  if  he  had  had  personal  knowledge  of  the  events. 
His  information  seems  in  fact  to  have  been  scanty  and  incidental. 

1  Literary  criticism  more  thoroughly  unscientific  than  some  of  the  current  "  analy- 
sis "  of  II  Acts  on  the  basis  of  the  occurrence  of  the  first  person  plural,  it  would  be  hard 
to  find.  See,  for  example,  Wellhausen's  Kriiische  Analyse,  p.  34. 

1  In  24,  23  (end)  we  may  have  a  hint  of  the  historian's  presence.  Compare  what 
was  said  above  in  regard  to  16,  40. 


THE  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  SECOND  HALF  OF  ACTS        45 

what  has  preceded,  show  plainly  enough  that  the  same  writer  is 
composing  the  narrative.1 

§  2.  THE  THEORIES  OF  NORDEN  AND  OTHERS 

A  typical  specimen  of  the  attempts  to  find  interpolations  in  the 
original  account  is  afforded  by  certain  comments  on  the  passage  27, 
9-11.  Wellhausen,  Noten  zur  A  G,  17,  says  of  these  verses:  "  Es 
braucht  nicht  noch  bewiesen  zu  werden,  dass  der  Vers  12  hinter 
V.  9-11  gar  nicht  zu  verstehen  ist,  sondern  unmittelbar  an  V.  8 
anschliesst.  Der  Passus  V.  9-11  ist  mithin  eine  Einlage  von  zweiter 
Hand."  But  by  what  process  of  divination  is  this  conclusion 
reached  ?  for  it  is  only  by  divination,  not  through  any  scientific 
process,  that  the  thing  can  be  done.  How  is  it  possible  for  any  one 
to  know  that  the  words  of  the  passage  do  not  mean  what  they  appear 
to  mean  ?  The  party  arrives  at  KaXot  Ai/icm,  in  Crete;  Paul  ad- 
vises them  to  stay  there,  saying  that  if  they  proceed  further  (as  they 
obviously  intend)  they  will  suffer  loss;  the  officers  do  not  heed  his 
words,  but  since  the  harbor  was  not  fit  for  wintering,  decide  to  put 
to  sea  in  the  hope  of  reaching  Phoenix.  There  is  no  semblance  of 
incongruity  here,  unless  one  taxes  his  ingenuity  to  create  it.  And 
cannot  the  main  course  of  a  narrative  be  interrupted  by  an  episode 
without  arousing  the  suspicion  of  an  interpolation  ?  Wendland, 
Die  hellenistisch-romische  Kultur2,  324,  after  giving  the  substance  of 
verses  8,  12,  and  13,  proceeds:  "  Dazwischengeschoben  ist  eine 
Warnung  des  Paulus  vor  Fortsetzung  der  Fahrt,  obgleich  dieseja  gar 
nicht  bedbsichtigt  war  "  (the  italics  are  mine).  If  the  wording  of  the 
narrative  makes  any  one  thing  evident,  it  is  this,  that  at  no  time  did 
those  in  charge  of  the  vessel  have  any  other  intention  than  that  of  a 

1  Wellhausen,  Krit.  Analyse,  34,  remarks:  "  Und  ferner  zeigen  die  beiden  grossen 
Partien,  in  denen  das  Wir  sich  wirklich  zeigt,  eine  erheblich  verschiedene  Art,  so  dass 
es  recht  zweifelhaft  wird,  ob  in  20,  6-21,  16  der  selbe  Erzahler  rede  wie  in  Kap.  27." 
This  is  an  assertion  which  neither  Wellhausen  nor  any  one  else  could  substantiate. 
The  subject  matter  is  "  erheblich  verschieden,"  and  the  manner  of  the  narrative  is 
affected  accordingly;  but  this  is  all.  As  for  the  nautical  knowledge  displayed  in  chap. 
27,  one  can  only  say  that  a  man  who  could  have  spent  as  many  long  months  on  the 
sea,  hi  many  ships,  as  this  writer,  without  learning  at  least  this  much,  must  have  been 
unusually  stupid. 


46  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

"  Fortsetzung  der  Fahrt."  Verses  7  f.  show  that  they  put  in  at  Fair 
Havens  not  because  they  wished  to  stop  there,  but  because  of  the 
unabating  fury  of  the  wind.  Vs.  ga  (IK.O.VOV  5e  xpovov  diayevotJi&ov) 
makes  it  plain  that  they  were  anxious  to  depart,  but  were  still  hin- 
dered for  a  considerable  time  by  the  wind,  and  vs.  12  («t  TTCOS 
dvvaivTo)  shows  the  same.  Of  course  the  pilot  and  the  shipmaster 
did  not  need  IKO.VOV  xpbvov  in  order  to  ascertain  that  the  harbor  was 
not  fit  for  wintering;  the  first  glance  would  have  shown  it,  even  if 
they  had  not  known  it  all  their  lives.  Only  a  very  strong  desire  to 
solve  the  problems  believed  to  be  present  in  II  Acts  could  account 
for  the  perverse  criticism  of  this  passage.  See  also  Agnostos  Theos, 
314  Anm.  i,  and  Preuschen's  Apostelgeschichte.  The  objections 
raised  against  27,  21-26  (see  e.g.  Wendt,  355  f.)  are  equally  futile 
and  hardly  more  plausible;  and  there  are  other  similar  cases.1 

The  speech  of  Paul  at  Athens,  recorded  in  chapter  17,  has  recently 
been  subjected  to  very  searching  criticism  by  Norden  in  his  Agnostos 
Theos.  I  have  read  the  book  with  great  enjoyment,  rinding  it  im- 
mensely interesting  and  stimulating;  I  am  unable  to  see,  however, 
that  it  throws  any  light  on  the  composition  of  the  Book  of  Acts. 

1  Certainly  some  of  the  attempted  dissection  of  the  Book  of  Acts  is  due  to  mis- 
understanding of  the  mental  attitude  and  predispositions  of  the  narrator,  and  of  the 
readers  for  whom  he  wrote.  The  attempt  to  find,  in  either  I  Acts  or  II  Acts,  at  least 
one  writer  who  thought  and  narrated  after  the  manner  of  a  modern  historian  is  doomed 
to  failure.  To  all  such  as  could  possibly  have  composed  these  histories,  or  any  part  of 
them,  there  was  one  and  the  same  persuasion  in  regard  to  the  aid  given  by  God  to  his 
chosen  emissaries  through  visions,  dreams,  angels,  and  manifestations  of  supernatural 
power.  These  things  were  not  only  a  matter  of  course,  they  were  also  a  necessity.  Paul 
was  a  prophet  (26,  i6ff.),  and  being  such,  had  the  power  of  foreseeing  future  events 
(universally  recognized  as  the  principal  characteristic  of  the  Hebrew  prophets)  as  well 
as  of  working  miracles.  If  he  had  not  possessed  these  powers,  he  would  not  have  been 
worthy  of  credence.  Luke  does  not  profess  to  have  seen  or  heard  any  of  these  marvel- 
lous happenings  himself;  they  were  reported  by  villagers  and  boatmen,  who  knew 
that  a  prophet  was  travelling  among  them,  and  neither  Luke  nor  any  of  his  fellows  could 
have  doubted  their  truth  for  an  instant.  The  only  remarkable  thing  is  that  they  are 
so  few  in  number.  Those  who  think  that  considerable  time  is  needed  for  the  growth 
and  wide  acceptance  of  such  legends,  or  that  their  adoption  by  an  early  Christian 
historian  shows  him  to  have  been  of  an  especially  credulous  turn  of  mind,  should  read 
the  life  of  St.  Simeon  Stylites  written  during  his  own  lifetime  by  the  cultivated  and 
truth-loving  scholar  Theodoret  (Historic  religiosa  xxvi),  who  was  a  near  neighbor 
and  personal  friend  of  the  great  ascetic. 


THE  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  SECOND  HALF  OF  ACTS        47 

Norden  attempts  to  show,  first,  that  the  speech  in  17,  22-31  con- 
forms to  the  recognized  model  of  a  missionary  sermon;  he  succeeds, 
however,  only  in  demonstrating  what  was  already  known.  It  is  true 
that  the  religious  propagandist  was  a  long-familiar  figure  at  that 
time;  also  true  that  many  of  these  missionary  preachers  were  men 
of  wide  learning  and  broad  sympathy  (it  was  for  this  very  reason, 
generally  speaking,  that  they  had  seen  new  light  and  wished  to 
share  it) ;  and  a  matter  of  course,  finally,  that  the  speaker  or  writer 
fashioned  his  discourse  according  to  his  purpose.  It  was  of  the 
highest  importance  to  set  forth  in  a  worthy  and  attractive  manner 
—  though  in  brief  compass  —  the  nature  of  God  and  of  his  relation 
to  man,  and  the  spiritual  character  of  his  worship.  Cultivated 
Hellenistic  Jews  and  cultivated  Greeks  would  have  had  very  much 
the  same  message  to  give,  in  these  regards,  in  the  first  century.  The 
polemic  against  idolatry,  too,  was  of  course  always  familiar.  It  was 
manifestly  important  also  to  be  conciliatory,  especially  when  it  came 
to  rebuking  or  correcting  the  accepted  beliefs  and  practices.  Even 
a  tyro  would  recognize  the  wisdom  of  commending  whatever  could 
be  commended  in  the  religion  or  religious  history  of  his  hearers. 
Mohammed,  for  instance,  unites  all  these  elements,  even  the  concilia- 
tory, in  his  exhortations  in  the  Koran.  These  things  could  all  be 
taken  for  granted.  But  the  question  of  a  commonly-used  literary 
scheme  of  the  missionary  discourse,  as  distinct  from  other  discourses 
("  Dass  der  Verfasser  der  Areopagrede  sich  an  ein  ihm  iiberliefertes 
Schema  anschloss,"  Agnostos  Theos,  3) ,  is  quite  another  matter.  The 
existence  of  such  a  scheme  is  intrinsically  improbable,  and  the  speci- 
mens cited  by  Norden  certainly  do  not  give  the  idea  any  new  plausi- 
bility. His  "  parallel  "  columns,  pp.  6  f.,  show  only  the  vaguest 
resemblances  on  the  lines  indicated  above:  knowledge  of  God;  nature 
of  true  worship;  need  of  turning  from  the  old  way  to  the  new;  promise 
of  a  blessed  future.  These  are  merely  the  essentials  of  any  religion, 
and  consequently  of  any  religious  propaganda.  Even  the  logical 
order  is  obvious.  Thus,  we  have  in  the  Koran,  n,  52-55,  a  typical 
specimen  of  a  brief  missionary  sermon.  The  prophet  Hud  is  sent 
to  the  'Adites  and  preaches  to  them  in  the  following  words:  "  0  my 
people!  Worship  (euo-e/iteTTe)  God;  ye  have  no  god  but  Him 


48  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

TTOLV  Wvos).  Ye  have  only  false  knowledge  (ayvoiav) .  53  I  do  not 
ask  you  for  any  reward;  my  reward  rests  with  Him  who  created  me 
(didovs  iraat,  far)i>).  Will  ye  not  have  understanding  (yv&<rip)  ? i 
54  Ask  your  Lord  for  forgiveness,  and  then  turn  to  Him  (yucraw^o-aTe). 
He  will  then  send  upon  you  rain  in  abundance,  55  and  will  add 
strength  to  your  strength  (T&V  avrov  ayad&v  airoKavaere) .  Do  not 
then  sinfully  turn  your  backs."  Similarly  Joseph  preaches  to  his 
companions  in  prison  (12,  37-40):  37,  '  I  have  wisdom  revealed  to 
me  from  God.  I  turned  from  the  false  way  to  the  right  way,  belief 
in  God  and  in  the  world  to  come.'  38,  Monotheism;  a  blessing  from 
God.  39,  Monotheism  better  than  a  plurality  of  gods.  40,  The 
times  of  ignorance;  lack  of  the  true  wisdom;  the  right  worship. 
These  examples  are  both  nearer  to  Norden's  "  type  "  than  some  of 
those  printed  in  his  parallel  columns.2  Or,  turning  to  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, take  the  discourse  of  Wisdom  in  Prov.  i,  22-33:  Need  of 
wisdom  (22);  repentance  (23);  24-32  are  negative,  describing  the 
fate  of  fools;  promise  of  blessing  (33).  Such  examples  could  easily 
be  multiplied.  Norden's  specimens  are  typical  only  in  this  same 
general  way;  of  anything  that  could  fairly  be  called  a  scheme  of 
literary  composition  there  is  not  a  trace.  And  since  even  so  widely 
read  and  keen-eyed  an  observer  as  he  has  not  been  able  to  demon- 
strate anything  of  the  sort,  it  is  not  likely  that  another  will  succeed 
where  he  has  failed. 

Norden's  attempt  (pp.  13-24)  to  point  out  specifically  Stoic  ele- 
ments in  the  speech  at  Athens  is  equally  unsuccessful.  These  are 
all  mere  commonplaces  in  Jewish  theology,  whether  Palestinian  or 
Hellenistic.  '  God  has  no  need  of  anything  that  man  can  give ' 
(Acts  17,  25);  cf.  Ps.  50,  12,  precisely  the  same  thing.  '  Reaching 
after  God  and  touching  him  '  (270);  the  figure  of  speech  is  not  in 
any  way  remarkable,  cf.  Is.  64,  7,  Job  19,  21,  Jer.  i,  9,  such  passages 

1  Verse  51,  introducing  this  account  of  Hud,  deals  entirely  with  hidden  wisdom, 
revealed  by  God  to  his  prophets. 

J  Norden  is  mistaken  (p.  7,  note  i),  in  thinking  that  in  Ode  Sol.  33,  8,  there  is  a 
reference  to  yvSxris.  It  is  simply  the  oft-repeated  contrast  between  the  corrupt  way, 
vs.  7,  and  the  right  way  (m{J*n  ^TT),  vs.  8.  He  is  also  hardly  justified  in  claiming 
(p.  5)  that  the  mention  of  the  resurrection  of  Christ  in  his  first  and  fourth  columns  is 
a  substitute  (!)  for  the  promise  of  eternal  life  given  in  the  others. 


THE  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  SECOND  HALF  OF  ACTS    49 

as  Job  4,  15  f.,  23,  3,  8,  9,  and  many  others.  '  He  is  not  far  from 
each  one  of  us  '  (276) ;  cf.  Deut.  4,  7,  Ps.  145,  iS.1  '  In  him  we  live, 
and  move,  and  have  our  being '  (28);  cf.  Job  12,  10,  Dan.  5,  23, 
Wisd.  7,  1 6,  Hebr.  2,  n.  Neither  the  ideas  nor  the  language  of  the 
speech,  then,  can  be  said  to  show  the  influence  of  the  Stoa.  Such 
ideas  as  these  were  older,  and  had  far  wider  currency,  than  many 
have  been  wont  to  beh'eve. 

As  for  the  altar  "  to  the  unknown  god"  Norden  shows,  as  others 
had  done  before,  that  there  was  at  that  time  at  Athens  an  altar 
which  was  pretty  widely  known,  bearing  an  inscription  mentioning 
ayvaxTToi  deoi,  and  that  altars  ayvuffruv  Q€&V  were  also  to  be  seen  in 
other  places.  Norden  undertakes  to  prove  that  Apollonius  of  Tyana, 
on  the  occasion  of  his  holding  a  5ictAe£ts  in  Athens,  took  as  his  start- 
ing point  this  altar  of  "  unknown  gods,"  interpreted  its  presence  as 
a  sign  of  unusual  Seto-iScu/zofta,  and  then  urged  that  so  god-fearing 
a  city  ought  to  receive  the  knowledge  of  the  highest  God,  who  is  a 
spirit,  has  no  need  of  any  offering  that  men  could  bring,  and  ought 
not  to  be  represented  by  images.  This  address  of  Apollonius  at 
Athens  was  contained,  according  to  Norden,  in  his  treatise  ircpi 
Qvai&v,  of  which  the  only  extant  fragment  hitherto  recognized  is 
quoted  by  Eusebius  in  the  well-known  passage  derived  from  Por- 
phyrius.  Norden  then  draws  the  conclusion  (p.  52)  that  we  have 
before  us  a  plain  case  of  literary  dependence,  and  that  the  author 
of  the  "  Speech  of  Paul  "  is  the  borrower.  If  the  validity  of  Nor- 
den's  demonstration  of  the  above  details  could  be  admitted,  it  would 
be  difficult  to  escape  from  his  conclusion.  But  when  his  argument 
is  examined,  it  is  seen  to  break  down  at  every  essential  point. 

The  weight  of  the  argument  lies  of  course  in  the  collocation  of  so 
many  points  of  correspondence  in  the  general  situation,  as  well  as 
in  the  more  striking  details.  Norden  names  (p.  51)  as  the  typical 
elements  in  the  story  told  of  both  Paul  and  Apollonius  the  follow- 
ing: visiting  a  city;  noticing  a  remarkable  inscription  on  an  altar; 
making  a  religious  discourse;  and  taking  as  the  starting  point  of  the 

1  One  can  hardly  believe  his  eyes  when  he  reads  Norden's  words,  p.  19,  after  quoting 
the  passage  from  Dion:  "  Die  Ubereinstimmung  der  Worte  nai  ye  06  naxpav  =  4« 
•ydp  oi>  naKpav  schliesst  die  Moglichkeit  einer  bloss  zufalligen  Beriihrung  aus  "! 


50  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

discourse  the  altar  inscription.  This  last-named  element  does  not 
occur,  to  be  sure,  in  any  account  of  Apollonius.  Norden  thinks  that 
it  can  be  postulated  for  him,  saying  (ibid.) :  "  derm  da  von  den  vier 
Komponenten,  aus  denen  das  Motiv  sich  zusammensetzt,  .  .  die 
ersten  drei  fur  die  athenische  Rede  des  Apollonios  iiberliefert  sind, 
so  muss  auch  der  vierte,  als  der  aus  dem  zweiten  und  dritten  not- 
wendig  resultierende  fur  ihn  angenommen  werden."  As  to  this, 
there  are  two  things  to  be  said.  First,  the  word  "  iiberliefert "  is 
used  here  in  a  very  misleading  way.  By  "  the  speech  of  Apollonius 
at  Athens  "  Norden  means  the  (conjectured)  address  which  he  sup- 
poses to  have  been  contained  in  the  trepl  dveiuv,  and  which  —  unless 
his  whole  argument  is  to  fall  to  the  ground  —  contained  (i)  a  pro- 
test against  neglect  and  contempt  of  the  gods  and  their  worship 
(giving  it  a  connection  with  the  disputation  mentioned  on  p.  38), 
and  (2)  an  allusion  to  the  altar  fayvwaTuv  daifjApuv  (giving  it  a  con- 
nection with  the  conversation  mentioned  on  p.  42).  As  for  (i): 
Norden  remarks,  p.  43,  that  we  know  "  aus  der  vorhin  angefiihrten 
Inhaltsangabe  "  that  this  protest  stood  in  the  Trepl  dv<ri£>v.  But 
how  can  this  statement  be  justified?  The  portion  of  the  "Inhalts- 
angabe "  (p.  38)  which  mentions  the  protest  of  Apollonius  concerns 
only  his  rebuke  of  the  blaspheming  Athenian  hierophant.  It  is  not 
said,  nor  even  implied,  that  this  rebuke  stood  in  the  irepi  Qvai&v;  on 
the  contrary,  the  plain  impression  gained  from  the  wording  of  the 
passage  is,  that  this  treatise  (fiifiK'Lov)  had  been  published  before 
Apollonius  had  this  experience  in  Athens.  To  assume,  as  Norden 
does,  that  the  publication  had  its  origin  in  the  StdXt^is  held  in  that 
city,  is  gratuitous  and  absolutely  unwarranted.  As  for  (2),  the  allu- 
sion to  the  altar  to  "  unknown  gods  ":  the  conversation  (it  is  no 
formal  discourse)  in  which  this  occurs  is  expressly  said  to  have 
occurred  in  Egyptl  Norden's  statement,  then,  that  the  incident  of 
noticing  a  remarkable  inscription  on  an  altar  "  fur  die  athenische 
Rede  des  Apollonios  iiberliefert  ist,"  is  an  amazing  perversion  of  the 
facts.  This  is  not  obtained  from  "  tradition  "  of  any  sort,  but  only 
from  an  audacious  combination  of  Norden's,  which,  as  I  shall  show, 
cannot  for  a  moment  be  allowed.  Secondly,  in  regard  to  Norden's 
claim  that  if  the  first  three  of  the  "  typical  elements  "  above  men- 


THE  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  SECOND  HALF  OF  ACTS        51 

tioned  are  admitted,  the  fourth  follows  of  necessity.  For  a  conclu- 
sive answer  to  this,  it  is  only  necessary  to  point  to  the  passage 
quoted  by  him,  p.  42,  containing  the  mention  of  the  altar.  This  very 
passage  might  conceivably  have  stood  in  the  Trepl  6v<n&v  (as  Norden 
imagines  that  it  did) ;  and  this  casual,  but  effective,  allusion  to  the 
Athenian  altar  l  might  perfectly  well  have  been  the  only  mention  of 
it  in  the  work.  Why  not  ?  To  demand  more  than  this  is  merely 
to  beg  the  question. 

And  now  in  regard  to  the  way  in  which  Norden  contrives  to 
transfer  to  Athens  the  conversation  held  by  Apollonius  in  Egypt 
with  the  young  man  from  Naukratis.  The  sage  is  pleased  with  his 
reverence  of  Aphrodite,  and  compliments  him.  The  youth  has  had 
a  painful  domestic  experience,  similar  to  that  of  Hippolytus  in  the 
house  of  his  father  Theseus;  and  Apollonius  is  thus  reminded  of  the 
hero,  and  led  to  contrast  his  impious  treatment  of  Aphrodite  with 
the  piety  of  the  young  man.  He  declares  that  the  latter  is  more 
worthy  of  reverence  than  the  other,  who  spoke  against  the  goddess 
in  so  ill-judged  a  manner;  and  adds,  with  pleasant  irony:  "  More 
sensible  to  speak  well  of  all  gods  (<ru<f>pove<rT€pov  yap  TO  irepl  TTO.VTUV 
Qe&v  ev  \ey€u>),  especially  at  Athens,  where  they  even  have  altars  to 
unknown  divinities."  Norden  assumes  that  "  to  speak  well  of  all 
gods  "  refers  to  the  youth  from  Naukratis,  and  is  much  mystified  by 
the  sentence.  Why  in  all  the  world,  he  asks  (p.  42),  should  there  be 
mention  of  Athens  here  ?  and  he  concludes,  that  the  saying  of  Apol- 
lonius has  been  taken  out  of  its  original  setting;  it  must  have  stood 
in  a  context  the  scene  of  which  was  Athens  rather  than  the  Nile. 
This  hypothesis  brings  with  it  considerable  difficulty,  to  be  sure, 
as  Norden  remarks.  The  youth  "  hat  sich  gar  nicht  an  den  Gottern 
vergangen,"  nor  has  he  spoken  well  of  "  all  gods  ";  why  then  these 
pointless  words  in  regard  to  him  ?  We  must  also  suppose  an  aston- 
ishing stupidity  on  the  part  of  the  author  of  the  story  (Philostratus) 
in  not  seeing  this,  and  in  permitting  the  senseless  reference  to  Athens 
("absurde  Uebertragung,"  Norden,  p.  44)  to  stand;  especially  since, 

1  Norden  speaks  of  it  (p.  42,  below)  as  "  das  athenische  Kultuskuriosum,  auf  das 
die  game  Geschichte  angelegt  ist."  Has  this  assertion  any  basis  whatever,  aside  from 
Norden's  own  imagination  ? 


52  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

as  Norden  himself  declares,  he  had  invented  this  whole  story  of 
Apollonius  in  Egypt,  and  could  therefore  have  fashioned  it  to  suit 
himself.  But  the  true  solution  is  much  simpler  than  the  one  pro- 
posed by  Norden.  It  is  this,  that  the  problematic  words  were  not 
spoken  of  the  youth,  to  whom  they  do  not  seem  to  belong,  but  of 
Hippolytus,  to  whom  in  every  way  they  do  seem  to  belong.  He  was 
born  at  Athens,  his  father  was  king  of  that  city,  his  tomb  was  shown 
there,  and,  according  to  many  writers,  Athens  was  the  scene  of  the 
greater  part  of  his  life.  Evidently  Apollonius  —  or  rather,  Philos- 
tratus  —  was  one  of  those  who  held  this  view.1 

Thus  disappears  the  last  vestige  of  support  for  Norden's  main 
contention.  When,  therefore,  he  claims  (p.  44,  below)  to  have  shown 
not  only  that  Apollonius  made  a  speech  at  Athens  in  which  he 
mentioned  altars  ayvuvTuv  8e&i>,  but  also  that  "  die  Ubereinstim- 
mung  zwischen  ihm  und  den  Worten  des  Areopagredners  erstreckt 
sich  bis  in  die  Nuance  des  Ausdruckes  hinein,"  we  can  only  reply, 
that  nothing  whatsoever  tending  to  substantiate  this  remarkable 
assertion  has  thus  far  come  to  light.  Until  some  new  evidence  is  dis- 

1  Norden  also  wishes  to  claim  for  the  xepi  Bvauav  the  words  put  by  Philostratus  into 
the  mouth  of  Apollonius  in  the  anecdote  of  the  Egyptian  temples,  p.  41.  He  says: 
"  Die  ihm  hier  hi  den  Mund  gelegte  Empfehlung  eines  bildlosen  Gottesdienstes  und 
einer  entsprechenden  Regelung  des  Opferrituals  war  wenigstens  fur  den  hochsten  Gott 
durch  die  erwahnte  Schrift  [the  T.9.]  beglaubigt."  And  again,  p.  43:  "  Es  kann  nicht 
auf  Zufall  beruhen,  dass  wir  vorhin  auf  die  fiktive  athiopische  Situation  aus  der  realen 
athenischen  bereits  ein  anderes  Motiv,  das  der  bildlosen  Verehrung  des  hochsten 
Gottes,  iibertragen  fanden:  dieses  Motiv  ist  fur  die  athenische  Rede  durch  das  erhaltene 
Fragment  aus  der  Schrift  vepl  dwruav  bezeugt."  That  is,  he  claims  two  points  of  con- 
tact: (i)  worship  without  images,  and  (2)  a  corresponding  regulation  of  the  sacrificial 
cult.  But  this  is  only  another  glaring  example  of  too  easy-going  argumentation. 
Nothing  whatever  is  said  in  the  anecdote  (as  Norden  asserts)  about "  einer  entsprechen- 
den Regelung  des  Opferrituals  ";  that  appears  only  in  the  irepl  QWTI&V,  regarding  the 
Highest  God;  nothing  whatever  is  said  in  the  extract  from  the  repl  Ova&v  (as  Norden 
asserts)  in  regard  to  "  bildlose  Verehrung  des  hochsten  Gottes."  We  do  not  know 
that  this  work  contained  a  single  word  about  images  of  gods.  The  remarks  of  Apollonius 
(Philostratus)  against  the  Egyptian  images  were  called  out  (as  Norden  says,  41  line  6) 
by  the  fact  that  they  gave  their  gods  the  forms  of  beasts  and  birds.  Thus  the  "  corre- 
spondence "  said  to  be  so  close  that  it  "  kann  nicht  auf  Zufall  beruhen,"  turns  out  to 
be  purely  imaginary.  Both  of  Norden's  statements  are  unwarranted,  and  the  argu- 
ment is  worthless. 


THE  INTEGRITY  OF  THE  SECOND  HALF  OF  ACTS    53 

covered  we  may  fairly  say,  exit  Apollonius,  so  far  as  Acts  17  is 
concerned.1 

So  far  as  language  and  style  are  concerned,  there  is  no  ground  for 
differentiating  the  account  of  Paul  at  Athens,  or  any  part  of  it,  from 
the  context  in  which  it  stands.  Norden  (333  ff.)  points  out  certain 
words  and  phrases  in  vss.  18  and  21:  ffirepiwXoyos,  X^yew  f)  &KOV€IV, 
and  Kdivorepov,  and  shows  that  they  are  X^cis  'ArriKai.  He  then 
says  in  regard  to  them  (p.  335) :  "  Alles  zusammengenommen,  kann 
ich  nicht  glauben,  dass  der  Redaktor  der  Acta,  dessen  Sprache  doch 
wahrlich  nichts  Attisches  an  sich  hat,  diese  Stelle  ohne  ein  liter- 
arisches  Vorbild  komponiert  haben  konnte."  But  one  cannot  help 
feeling  that  the  widely  experienced  and  accomplished  author  of 
II  Acts  may  himself  have  been  familiar  with  X$f«s  'ATTWCCU,  perhaps 
even  more  than  any  modern  scholar.  There  is  a  very  obvious  reason 
why  he  should  have  employed  these  locutions  where  we  find  them, 
and  an  equally  obvious  reason  why  he  would  not  have  employed 
Atticisms  in  the  rest  of  his  history;  it  would  have  been  an  absurd 
affectation,  since  they  did  not  belong  to  the  literary  language  which 
he,  and  Theophilus,  and  their  circles,  were  accustomed  to  use. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  speech  on  the  Areopagus  that  Paul  him- 
self might  not  have  said.  Our  reasons  for  believing  that  the  words 
are  not  his,  but  Luke's  are:  first,  that  the  speech  does  not  sound 
like  Paul;  and  secondly  (a  very  potent  reason),  our  knowledge  of 
the  literary  habit  of  ancient  authors,  in  freely  composing  speeches, 
dialogues,  letters,  and  other  documents,  for  the  embellishment  of 
their  histories.  All  the  speeches  and  letters  in  I  and  II  Acts  are 
presumably  free  compositions  of  the  authors  of  the  two  documents 
in  which  they  stand.2 

1  It  is  a  pity  that  a  work  of  such  learning  as  the  Agnosias  Theos  should  be  so  marred 
by  inaccurate  statements  and  loose  reasoning,  especially  when  the  problem  in  hand  is 
such  an  important  one.  It  has  seemed  desirable  to  examine  its  argument  here  at  some 
length,  since  so  many  scholars,  including  the  most  recent  commentators  on  Acts  (Well- 
hausen,  Krit.  Anal.,  36  note;  Preuschen,  Afgesch.,  vi;  Wendt,  Komm.,  Vorwort), 
have  declared  themselves  convinced  by  it. 

1  This  of  course  applies  not  only  to  such  documents  as  23,  26-30,  but  also  to  the 
letter  of  the  Apostles,  15,  23-29,  which  was  written  in  Aramaic.  For  a  more  extended 
discussion  of  this  whole  subject,  especially  as  touching  Jewish  literature,  the  "  docu- 
ments "  in  Ezra-Neh.,  in  I  Maccabees,  etc.,  I  would  refer  to  my  Ezra  Studies,  pp.  145- 
150,  206,  245. 


54  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

As  for  the  change,  which  seems  to  have  been  made,  from  ayvuxrrois 
0«ns  to  TOJ  ayi>(joffT<t)  0e<£>,  it  is  entirely  harmless  as  the  introduction  to 
a  speech.  It  is  merely  an  orator's  device,  which  has  been  in  common 
use  in  all  ages,  the  purpose  being  to  catch  and  hold  the  close  atten- 
tion of  the  audience.1  I  heard  precisely  this  thing  done,  with  strik- 
ing effect,  a  few  years  ago;  the  speaker  beginning  his  address  by 
referring  to  a  picture  (in  reality  notably  different  from  his  descrip- 
tion of  it)  which  he  declared  to  be  hanging  in  the  building  in  which 
the  address  was  delivered.  No  one  was  deceived,  but  all  were 
captivated  by  the  audacious  irony  of  the  orator.  It  is  to  be  remem- 
bered also  that  Paul  had  been  brought  up  in  the  strictest  Jewish  sect, 
and  that  the  Jews,  like  the  Mohammedans,  had  a  strong  dislike  of 
even  repeating  words  which  imply  a  plurality  of  gods.  There  may 
thus  have  been  also  a  mild  protest  here,  in  the  substitution  of  the 
singular  for  the  plural.  See  also  Wendt's  excellent  remarks  (p. 
257),  and  Norden's  demonstration  of  the  fact  that  the  singular 
number,  ayvuaros  Qeos,  was  also  familiar  at  that  time,  though  not 
(so  far  as  we  know)  as  an  inscription  on  any  altar. 

1  It  would  have  been  a  totally  different  matter,  for  instance,  if  Paul  had  been  repre- 
sented as  writing  a  letter  to  his  friends  at  home,  saying  that  when  he  was  in  Athens 
he  saw  an  altar  inscribed  "  to  the  unknown  god  "I 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  RELATION  OF  II  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS 
§  i.  OLD  TESTAMENT  QUOTATIONS  AND  LANGUAGE  IN  ACTS 

Interesting  confirmation  of  the  results  thus  far  reached  is  afforded 
by  a  study  of  the  manner  of  using  the  Old  Testament  in  the  two 
halves  of  the  book.  As  has  been  observed,  II  Acts  is  almost  entirely 
free  from  Semitisms,  and  shows  no  trace  of  the  Aramaic  idiom  which 
is  omnipresent  in  I  Acts.  Luke  has  been  thought  by  many  scholars 
to  imitate  deliberately  the  translation-idiom  of  the  Greek  Old  Testa- 
ment, especially  in  portions  of  his  work  where  the  relation  to  the 
scenes  and  ideas  of  Jewish  holy  writ  was  especially  close.  But  in 
II  Acts  we  see  absolutely  nothing  of  the  sort.  Even  in.  22,  1-21, 
where  Paul  is  represented  as  addressing  the  Jews  hi  Jerusalem  "  in 
the  Hebrew  language  "  (21,  40;  22,  2),  at  a  time  when  he  especially 
wished  to  show  himself  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  we  find  no 
Semitisms,  no  Biblical  language,  no  allusion  to  the  Scriptures. 

The  passage  26,  16-18  is  highly  interesting  as  showing  how  our 
author  wrote  under  circumstances  almost  uniquely  fitted  to  make 
him  recall  the  words  and  phrases  of  the  Old  Testament.  He  is  here 
composing,  with  entire  freedom,1  the  charge  given  by  the  God  of 
Israel  to  his  apostle  to  the  Gentiles  on  the  occasion  of  his  calling 
him  to  the  great  work.  The  writer's  conception  of  the  God  whose 
words  to  Paul  are  here  given  is  of  course  derived  from  the  Jewish 
Scriptures,  and  the  language  in  which  the  words  were  spoken  (as 
we  should  know  even  if  we  were  not  expressly  told  in  verse  14)  is 
thought  of  as  "  Hebrew."  2  Since  the  Christian  apostles  were  in  a 

1  This  appears  from  comparison  of  the  parallel  passages,  and  was  to  be  expected 
from  the  literary  habit  mentioned  above,  the  writer  being  quite  free  to  adorn  his  narra- 
tive ad  libitum  with  such  material  as  this. 

2  Presumably  Hebrew  rather  than  Aramaic,  though  rg  'EppaLSi  St,a\&cr<f  might 
mean  either. 

55 


56  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

true  sense  the  successors  of  the  Hebrew  prophets,  and  since,  too, 
this  whole  passage  forms  part  of  the  address  to  Agrippa,  who  '  be- 
lieved in  the  prophets  '  (vs.  27),*  it  is  altogether  natural  that  some 
words  reminiscent  of  the  great  seers  of  Israel  should  be  included  in 
the  divine  announcement  to  Paul.  It  is  not,  I  think,  an  over-acute 
vision  that  sees  a  conscious  echo  of  Ezek.  2,  i  (call  of  Ezekiel)  in 
iiri  rous  7r65as  ffov,  and  of  Jer.  i,  7  f.  (call  of  Jeremiah)  in 
<re  .  .  .  «ls  ous  €70?  aTrooreXAco  ere;  though  the  phrases 
are  very  ordinary,  and  certainly  no  formal  quotation  is  intended.  It 
maybe  accidental  that  the  only  other  trace  of  Old  Testament  phrase- 
ology in  the  whole  passage  is  reminiscent  of  Isaiah,  dwT£cu  6</>0aX/zous 
and  air6  <TK6rovs  els  <f>&s  sounding  more  like  Is.  42,  7, 1 6  than  like  any 
other  passages  in  which  this  oft-recurring  idea  is  expressed.  But  the 
absence  here  of  Old  Testament  quotations  or  phrases,  other  than  the 
uncertain  instances  just  mentioned,  is  remarkable.  The  language 
used  is  well  suited  to  its  purpose,  it  is  needless  to  say,  and  makes 
distinctly  the  impression  of  being  the  language  of  holy  writ;  there  is 
an  approach  to  that  balancing  of  clauses  and  correspondence  of 
phrases  which  is  universal  in  the  loftier  passages  of  Semitic  litera- 
ture, whether  Hebrew  or  Aramaic,  poetry  or  prose.  No  one,  even 
in  modern  times,  who  had  ever  read  the  Old  Testament  could  write 
in  any  other  way,  in  such  a  context  as  this.  But  the  contrast  with 
such  passages  as  Luke  i,  14-17;  31-33;  3S~37;  2>  9~J4  (to  say 
nothing  of  the  poems  in  these  chapters)  is  perfectly  clear:  in  the 
Gospel  the  clauses  are  all  reducible  to  the  Hebrew  line  of  three  metri- 
cal accents,  and  the  idioms  are  those  of  translation-Greek;  here  in 
Acts  neither  of  these  two  things  is  true.  Luke  begins  with  a  Greek 
proverb  (vs.  14),  proceeds  with  a  construction  (uv  re  eI5e's  fj-e  3>v 
T€  6<f>6ri<rona.i  <roi,  vs.  16)  which  is  perfectly  comprehensible  in  Greek, 
but  absolutely  inconceivable  as  a  translation  from  Aramaic  or  He- 
brew; and  in  the  verses  which  follow,  in  which  he  approaches  the 
Old  Testament  diction  more  nearly,  there  is  nothing  resembling  a 
Semitism;  indeed,  the  Triarci  without  a  preposition  (vs.  18)  would  be 
most  unlikely  as  a  translation  in  such  a  place  as  this.  Yet  this  is  the 

1  That  vss.  24-29  give  a  substantially  accurate  account  of  the  course  of  events  on 
that  occasion,  I  have  no  doubt. 


THE  RELATION  OF  II  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS  57 

writer  who  has  been  supposed  by  some  scholars  to  attach  a  peculiar 
sanctity  to  the  jargon  of  the  Septuagint! 

When  the  formal  citations  of  Old  Testament  scripture  in  Acts  are 
examined,  the  contrast  between  the  two  halves  of  the  book,  in  the 
amount  of  such  citation,  is  really  startling.  In  the  smaller  edition  of 
Westcott  and  Hort,  I  Acts  extends  over  thirty-eight  pages,  II  Acts 
has  thirty-two.  The  former  half  is  very  liberally  supplied  with  quo- 
tations; the  editors  have  printed  in  uncial  type  and  identified  in  their 
index  ninety-four  such  (but  many  of  these,  I  think,  are  too  uncertain 
to  be  allowed) ;  Nestle's  text  recognizes  eighty- three.  More  than  half 
of  them  occur  in  the  speech  of  Stephen  in  chapter  7,  but  as  they  are 
there  by  the  choice  of  the  writer,  they  of  course  deserve  to  be  counted 
with  the  rest.  In  II  Acts,  the  Old  Testament  is  quoted  only  four 
timesl  The  passages  are  17,  31  (Ps.  9,  8,  or  96, 13,  or  98,  9),  22,  5  (Ex. 
22,  28),  25,  16  (Ezek.  2,  i  ?),  and  28,  26  f.  (Is.  6,  9  f.).  The  first  of 
these  is  merely  a  widely  current  phrase;  the  second  is  probably  a  true 
report  of  Paul's  own  words,  and  therefore  not  to  be  counted  here;  the 
third  is  doubtful,  because  it  is  almost  made  necessary  by  the  context. 
In  the  fourth  alone  do  we  have  a  formal  citation;  this  is  therefore  the 
only  passage  in  the  thirteen  chapters  composed  by  Luke  himself  in 
which  he  expressly  refers  to  the  Hebrew  scriptures.  When  Paul  de- 
livers an  address  to  Jews,  in  this  part  of  the  book  (22, 1-21 ;  26,  2-29) 
he  neither  appeals  to  the  sacred  volume  nor  employs  its  words  in  any 
way.1  Contrast  with  this  the  fact  that  his  speeches  to  the  Jews  in 
chapter  13  contain  eleven  Old  Testament  quotations !  It  seems  plain 
that  the  reason  for  this  great  difference  must  lie  in  Luke's  early  train- 
ing. Probably  most  of  the  Jewish  and  Christian  writers  on  religious 
themes,  in  his  day,  were  men  "  full  of  "  the  Old  Testament,  trained 
from  early  youth  in  the  knowledge  of  the  holy  scriptures,  Hebrew  or 
Greek.  Luke  was  not  one  of  these.  His  interest  in  the  sacred  writ- 
ings seems  to  have  been  a  comparatively  late  acquisition,  and  their 
words  and  phrases  did  not  come  readily  to  his  pen.  He  seems  to 
have  been  singularly  free  from  any  personal  interest  in  theological 

1  I  leave  28,  26  f.  out  of  account  here,  since  it  is  not  represented  as  part  of  an  address, 
but  as  a  parting  shot  delivered  by  Paul  as  the  Jews  were  leaving  after  his  argument 
with  them.  It  is  also  Luke's  own  parting  shot! 


58  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

matters,  and  apparently  had  no  considerable  aptitude  for  studies  in 
that  field.  This  may  serve  to  explain  why  we  gam  from  Acts  not  the 
slightest  conception  of  the  great  battles  on  behalf  of  Christian  doc- 
trine which  Paul  was  fighting,  with  himself  and  with  others,  during 
all  the  latter  part  of  his  life.  It  may  be  doubted  whether  Luke  had 
any  clear  understanding  of  the  nature  of  these  controversies.  His 
own  interests  were  mainly  practical  and  humanitarian,  and  "  the 
Scriptures  "  did  not  mean  to  him  what  the  phrase  meant  to  Paul 
and  to  most  of  his  associates. 

In  I  Acts,  the  treatment  of  Old  Testament  quotations  by  the  trans- 
lator is  precisely  the  same  as  that  which  we  can  observe  in  the  Third 
Gospel.  As  we  have  seen,  Luke  was  Hellenist  enough  to  give,  on 
principle,  every  quotation  from  the  Old  Testament  in  the  form  in 
which  it  had  stood  for  centuries  in  the  Greek  Bible  and  was  familiar 
to  those  for  whom  he  wrote. 

§  2.  THE  HOMOGENEITY  OF  THE  ARAMAIC  DOCUMENT 

In  regard  to  the  Aramaic  document  underlying  i,  1-15,  35,  this 
much  can  be  said  at  the  outset,  that  in  its  Greek  dress  it  gives  no 
obvious  evidence  of  composition.  Of  course  every  document  of 
the  nature  of  this  one  is  "  composite  "  in  the  sense  that  it  is  put 
together  out  of  materials  collected  from  various  sources.  Some  of 
the  materials  used  by  the  writer  of  this  history  may  possibly  have 
been  written  records  (letters,  memoranda,  or  popular  narrative),  and 
in  that  case  we  should  expect  them  to  be  reproduced  with  little 
change.  It  is  altogether  probable,  however,  that  the  main  source 
from  which  our  author  obtained  his  information  of  all  these  events 
was  hearsay;  and  that  he  composed  his  narrative  with  the  freedom 
which  was  customary,  and  in  perfect  good  faith.  Even  if  large  sec- 
tions were  written  entirely  in  his  own  words,  on  the  basis  of  his  own 
personal  knowledge,  they  were  at  least  the  product  of  various  occa- 
sions, moods,  and  influences.  To  demand  perfect  consistency  would 
be  unreasonable,  and  even  a  considerable  measure  of  self-contradic- 
tion is  altogether  human.  If  the  fact  of  translation  is  granted,  it  is 
not  likely  that  any  convincing  theory  of  composition  will  ever  be 
put  forth. 


THE  RELATION  OF  II  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS  59 

As  the  Aramaic  history  lay  before  its  translator,  it  included  all 
that  we  now  have  in  I  Acts,  from  the  first  chapter  to  the  latter  part 
of  the  fifteenth.  This  is  made  certain  by  the  uniformity  in  language 
and  treatment.  More  than  this,  its  beginning  extended  back  into 
the  first  verse  of  the  first  chapter,  as  I  shall  endeavor  to  show. 

The  manner  in  which  the  book  opens  is  sufficiently  remarkable. 
There  is  no  introductory  paragraph,  although  we  are  led  to  expect  one. 
Luke  enters  upon  a  prefatory  sentence  addressed  to  Theophilus,  but 
the  sentence  is  never  finished.  Of  a  sudden  we  find  that  it  is  no 
longer  Luke  that  is  speaking,  but  his  source.  How  or  where  the 
transition  is  effected,  there  is  no  plain  indication,  yet  the  fact  is 
certain.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  [iiv  of  vs.  i  has  no  corresponding 
5e,  nor  even  the  inconsequence  of  referring  to  a  "  former  "  XOYOS 
without  proceeding  to  some  mention,  however  brief,  of  the  present 
sequel;  more  significant  than  these  things  is  the  material  evidence, 
even  before  the  first  pause  in  the  sentence  is  reached,  that  another 
than  Luke  is  telling  the  story.  The  "  forty  days  "  of  vs.  3  is  quite 
incongruous  with  Luke  24,  as  many  have  observed; 1  Preuschen, 
Komm.,  Wellhausen,  Analyse,  and  others  would  reject  the  verse  as 
an  interpolation.  The  words  in  vs.  4:  "  the  promise  .  .  .  which  ye 
have  heard  from  me  "  could  never  have  been  written  by  the  compiler 
of  the  Third  Gospel,  for  he  knew,  better  than  any  other,  that  the 
promise  here  quoted  was  spoken  by  John  the  Baptist,  not  by  Jesus. 
See  the  note  on  n,  16,  above.  He  softens  the  contradiction — but 
by  no  means  removes  it  —  by  inserting  his  own  TOV  warp6s  (Luke  24, 
49).  Again,  even  in  vs.  2  there  is  evidence  of  translation,  as  has 
already  been  shown,  similar  to  the  indications  found  in  the  imme- 
diately succeeding  parts  of  the  chapter.  The  fact  deserves  to  be 

1  It  is  not  at  all  likely  that  Luke  would  "  adopt  another  tradition  "  of  the  ascension 
and  the  interval  immediately  preceding  on  oral  authority,  after  he  had  finished  his 
Gospel.  It  is  not  probable  that  there  was  any  considerable  interval  between  the  com- 
pletion of  the  Gospel  and  that  of  Acts;  even  if  there  were,  he  had  already  tested  and 
chosen  his  authorities.  An  oral  authority,  previously  overlooked  by  him,  would  cer- 
tainly not  have  been  allowed  to  supplant  completely  his  former  account.  We  know 
that  he  is  using  a  written  source  in  this  narrative  of  the  beginning  of  the  Jerusalem 
church;  and  the  only  reasonable  conclusion  we  can  reach  is  this,  that  his  source  extends 
back  into  these  first  verses  —  especially  as  the  linguistic  evidence  shows  the  same  thing. 


60  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

strongly  emphasized,  that  there  is  no  point  after  vs.  la  at  which  it 
could  reasonably  be  claimed  that  Luke  begins  to  make  direct  use  of  his 
document  of  the  Jerusalem  church.  Verses  15-26  are  the  immediate 
and  homogeneous  continuation  of  6-14,  and  these  verses  in  turn 
have  an  equally  close  literary  and  material  connection  with  4  f . 
But  vs.  4  also  presupposes  just  what  we  have  in  1^-3! 

The  conclusion,  satisfying  all  the  evidence,  is  this,  that  Luke's 
proceeding  here  is  exactly  like  that  which  we  can  observe  in  his 
Gospel,  as  well  as  in  his  subsequent  use  of  this  same  document:  he 
gives  his  sources  the  word,  adding  just  as  little  as  possible.1  We 
may  conjecture  that  the  original  beginning  of  the  Jerusalem  docu- 
ment was  as  follows:  n  N»V  ny  nsbvb*  nnyo^  JHB*  ntf  n  p^«  fcj  tna 

T  T  T   ~  ~        V  •  T  .        I     ..    .  T  -  T 

TI  Ha  rini>  FiBtej  ^n  H  ,  * .  pkiDNi  NBh«  H  «nna  N3J  n  KTT^  ipa 
.-.        i  —    .      T         .     T         T      ,T_.       i..- 

^  mn  -wow  firf?  Kin  Ktnnp  pjmx  Ppi11  "'I3  Pf?^  pn*p  Fi#0n  "inn  jp 

*ai  }«N  ipQ  rinBjj  Kin  nk>nD  na*  .  • ,  xnta  n  Nniata .     "  After  all  that 
i..-  T      —    .     .  T  T  T 

Jesus  did  and  taught,  up  to  the  day  when  he  gave  commandment  to 
the  apostles,  whom  he  had  chosen  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  was  taken 
up  (to  whom  he  also  showed  himself  alive,  with  many  proofs,  after 
his  passion,  appearing  to  them  during  forty  days  and  speaking  the 
things  concerning  the  kingdom  of  God) :  while  eating  in  company 
with  them,  he  charged  them,"  etc.  This  is  an  eminently  suitable 
beginning  of  such  a  church-history  as  the  one  before  us;  it  is  hard 
to  imagine  a  better.  It  contains,  moreover,  just  those  things  which 
are  presupposed  in  the  following  narrative.  If  we  suppose  the  docu- 
ment to  have  begun  in  these  words,  we  have  at  once  the  explanation 
of  Luke's  procedure,  which  is  worthy  of  him  in  its  simplicity  and 
self-restraint.  He  merely  substituted  Trept,  "  concerning"  for  the 
ins,  "after,"  of  his  source,  which  he  left  otherwise  untouched,  and 
then  prefixed  his  T6v  f£v  irpurov  \6yov  €Tron}<r&nr}v,  <£  6e6<£iXe.  It  is 
to  be  observed  that  the  main  clause,  in  the  Aramaic  original,  began 
with  vs.  4:  "  eating  in  company  with  them  he  charged  them"  etc. 

1  See,  for  instance,  in  the  opening  chapters  of  his  Gospel  how,  after  a  single  sentence 
giving  the  briefest  possible  introduction  to  his  great  task,  he  proceeds  at  once  with  a 
word-for-word  rendering  of  a  Hebrew  document,  to  which  he  seems  to  contribute  no 
comment  nor  supplement  of  any  sort.  See  also  his  treatment  of  the  Lord's  Prayer 
(Aram.  Gospels,  p.  309  ff.). 


THE  RELATION  OF  II  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS  6l 

The  "  and  "  at  the  beginning  of  this  clause  is  redundant  in  the  Ara- 
maic, as  is  usual  in  such  cases,  especially  when  the  clause  is  intro- 
duced by  H3 .  Of  course  Luke  renders  the  conjunction.1 

The  reasons  often  urged  in  recent  years  for  considering  the  early 
chapters  of  the  book  as  composite,  the  work  of  an  editor  who  com- 
bined written  sources,  I  am  unable  to  regard  as  valid,  though  I  have 
read  the  arguments  of  Harnack  and  others  with  some  diligence. 
Supposed  differences  in  the  theological  background  of  different  chap- 
ters are  likely  to  be  purely  imaginary;  our  knowledge  of  the  condi- 
tions of  the  time  is  far  too  meager  to  make  such  reasoning  safe.  In 
more  than  one  place,  so  much  general  resemblance  has  been  observed 
between  the  accounts  of  two  successive  events,  or  series  of  events, 
that  the  hypothesis  of  originally  duplicate  narratives  of  the  same 
occurrences  has  suggested  itself  to  some.  Thus  Harnack,  Apostel- 
geschichte,  142-145,  would  make  2,  1-47  and  5,  17-42  a  separate 
account  running  parallel  to  3, 1-5, 16.  But  the  repetitions,  recurring 
situations,  and  similarity  of  treatment  could  not  have  been  avoided 
under  the  circumstances.  Chapter  2  tells  of  the  gift  of  tongues,  the 
resulting  speech  of  Peter,  and  the  effect  in  Jerusalem;  chapter  3  f., 
of  the  first  miracle  of  healing  —  with  its  unanswerable  argument,  the 
resulting  speech  of  Peter,  and  the  effect,  especially  on  the  Jewish 
authorities.  The  narrative  of  these  two  occurrences  must  inevitably 
seem  to  return  upon  itself  to  some  extent,  since  the  general  situation, 
the  chief  actors,  and  the  exciting  incident  (a  miracle)  were  neces- 
sarily the  same  in  both  cases.  But  the  two  events  are  essentially 
different  from  each  other,  and  each  is  highly  significant  in  its  own 
way.  The  second  is  the  natural  sequel  to  the  first,  and  I  do  not  see 
how  it  is  possible  to  deny  that  there  is  progress  in  the  narrative  from 
one  to  the  other.  Wendt,  Komm.,  98  (on  2,  43-47)  writes:  "  In  V. 
43  ist  von  vielen  Wundertaten  der  App.  und  dem  furchterregenden 

1  What  has  so  often  been  said  in  regard  to  the  necessity  of  a  formal  "  literary  " 
introduction  to  this  second  treatise  of  Luke  falls  to  the  ground  as  soon  as  the  translation 
is  recognized.  The  author  was  not  only  under  no  stylistic  necessity  whatever,  but  the 
strict  interpretation  of  his  task  moved  him  to  put  himself  in  the  background  as  soon 
and  as  far  as  possible.  Everything  needful  in  the  way  of  introduction  to  the  work  is 
done  in  the  words  which  we  actually  have  before  us. 


62  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

Eindrucke  derselben 1  die  Rede,  wahrend  doch  in  K.  3  u.  4  der 
Bericht  iiber  die  Lahmenheilung  und  die  anschliessenden  Verhand- 
lungen  so  ausgefiihrt  wird,  als  sei  dies  das  erste  (4, 16)  offenkundige 
Wunder  der  Jiinger  gewesen,  die  man  bisher  noch  nicht  als  im  Namen 
Jesu  wirkend  gekannt  hatte  (vgl.  zu  4,  7)."  But  is  not  a  writing  — 
even  an  ancient  writing  —  entitled  to  the  interpretation  which, 
makes  it  self-consistent  rather  than  self-contradictory  ?  It  is  only 
by  a  forced  exegesis  of  the  passages  in  question  that  these  discrepan- 
cies can  be  created;  the  text  itself  does  not  readily  suggest  them,  and 
they  have  been  overlooked  by  the  vast  majority  of  commentators. 
The  same  thing  is  true,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  of  all  the  other 
discrepancies  and  contradictions  which  have  recently  been  pointed 
out  in  I  Acts:  they  are  such  as  are  easily  found  by  those  who  are  in 
search  of  them,  but  could  hardly  seem  convincing  to  the  reader  who 
is  equally  inclined  to  regard  the  whole  account  as  the  work  of  a  single 
author. 

Some  scholars  have  regarded  chapters  13  and  14  as  belonging  to  a 
source  different  from  that  of  the  preceding  chapters.  The  language 
of  both,  however,  is  distinctly  translation-Greek,  see  the  notes  above, 
and  the  narrative  which  they  contain  is  essential  to  the  plan  and 
purpose  of  the  Aramaic  history  of  the  early  church,  as  I  hope  to 
show  presently.  Many  commentators  have  been  impressed  by  the 
resemblance,  in  both  substance  and  form,  between  the  speech  of  the 
apostles  at  Lystra  (14,  15-17)  and  the  address  of  Paul  at  Athens 
(17,  22-31).  Wendt,  Komm.,  254  (cf.  220),  pronounces  the  Lystra 
speech  an  imitation  (Nachbildung)  of  the  other;  and  the  opinion  is 
often  expressed  that  the  same  writer  must  have  composed  both.  The 
striking  resemblances  are  due  mainly,  however,  to  the  similarity  of 
situation  in  the  two  passages.  In  each  case  Paul  is  represented  as 
addressing  highly  cultivated  pagans  by  whom  he  has  been  well  re- 
ceived and  whom  he  hopes  to  impress  favorably,  and  the  starting 
point  of  each  of  the  two  speeches  happens  to  be  furnished  him  by  the 
religious  beliefs  of  these  peoples:  in  the  one  case,  the  attempted 

1  Since  this  item  is  derived  (see  Wendt's  following  note)  from  a  reading  which  most 
editors  and  commentators  have  regarded  as  manifestly  inferior  (Preuschen  does  not 
even  mention  it),  we  may  safely  discount  the  argument  obtained  from  it  here. 


THE  RELATION  OF  H  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS  63 

sacrifice;  in  the  other,  the  altar  to  the  "  unknown  god."  Also,  as 
we  have  seen,  there  are  certain  fundamental  ideas  which  could  hardly 
be  absent  in  any  typical  missionary  address  to  pagans.  It  seems 
probable,  however,  that  II  Acts  was  not  written  until  after  I  Acts 
had  been  translated  into  Greek,  and  in  that  case  it  would  have  been 
very  natural  for  Luke  to  bring  into  the  speech  at  Athens  some  un- 
conscious reminiscence  of  that  at  Lystra.  Linguistically,  be  it  noted, 
the  two  speeches  are  strongly  contrasted.  In  14,  15  S.  the  Greek  is 
fashioned  upon  its  Semitic  original.  EOa'yyeXifo/iCj'oi  renders  "ID3, 
which  means  not  only  "  bring  good  tidings  "  (the  customary  render- 
ing) but  also  simply  "  exhort."  Maraluv  presumably  represents 
Nrny.13  (°f-  Dent.  32,  21;  Jer.  8,  19,  etc.),  literally  "  errors,"  a  some- 
what more  conciliatory  word  than  the  Greek.  'Eirl  Qebv  $&VTOL  (with- 
out the  article!)  renders  exactly  the  Aramaic  equivalent  On  r6«, 
Ps.  42,  3;  DJJ?  I^K,  Jos.  3, 10)  of  the  standing  Hebrew  phrase  ^n  ta, 
"  the  living  God,"  Jos.  3,  10;  Hos.  2,  i;  Ps.  42,  3;  84,  3;  2  Kings 
19,  4, 16,  etc.  The  clause  from  the  Old  Testament  is  a  real  citation, 
and  not  merely  a  remote  parallel,  as  in  17,  24.  And  finally,  there 
is  the  mistranslation  of  *>3D,  see  the  note  on  the  passage.  In  17, 
22  ff.,  on  the  contrary,  everything  is  native  Greek.  The  word 
SeicnScu/Kweo-repous,  for  example,  could  not  be  a  translation,  nor  is 
there  any  Semitic  word  which  could  naturally  have  been  rendered  by 
ayvuffru  (0e£).  Such  phrases  as  farjv  nai  Trvorjv  and  Travras  iravraxov 
would  not  be  found  in  chapters  1-15.  And  finally,  there  is  the 
Greek  quotation  in  vs.  28.  The  true  relation  of  the  two  speeches  is 
thus  quite  evident. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  order  of  the  chapters  12-15,  so  far  as  I 
can  see,  that  gives  ground  for  any  suspicion  of  editorial  composition 
or  disarrangement,  and  the  order  of  events  seems  to  me  entirely 
logical  and  probable.  It  is  plain  to  see  why  the  change  from  "  Saul  " 
to  "  Paul  "  was  made  in  chapter  13.  The  Aramaic  document  very 
probably  kept  the  name  bxy  throughout.  But  to  have  preserved  it 
thus  in  the  Greek  translation,  reserving  the  change  until  15,  36  ff., 
would  have  been  disturbing  on  more  than  one  account.  There  was 
no  evident  reason  why  the  change  of  name  should  be  made  at  the 
point  where  Luke's  own  narrative  began.  The  effect  would  certainly 


64  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

also  have  been  to  make  apparent  the  fact  of  composition.  But  the 
main  consideration  was  certainly  this,  that  the  logical  place  for  in- 
troducing the  new  name  was  the  point  where  the  "  Apostle  to  the 
Gentiles  "  began  the  great  foreign  labors  which  were  his  chief  glory 
and  by  reason  of  which  the  apostles  held  their  council  in  Jeru- 
salem. To  the  Jews  and  Christians  of  Palestine  he  was  still  "  Saul 
of  Tarsus,"  but  the  name  by  which  he  was  known  all  through  the 
Greek-speaking  world  was  Paul.  Naturally,  therefore,  the  place  to 
begin  the  use  of  the  latter  name  was  the  account  of  his  first  great 
missionary  journey. 

There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  in  15,  35  we  have  the  original 
conclusion  of  Luke's  Aramaic  source.  This  is  the  natural  place  for 
the  Judean  document  to  come  to  an  end,  for  the  story  of  the  first 
distinct  period  of  the  Christian  church  in  Jerusalem  has  been  written. 
Peter  has  initiated  the  work  among  the  Gentiles.  Paul  and  Barna- 
bas have  gained  their  first  great  successes  as  foreign  missionaries. 
The  Mother  Church  has  sent  out  its  circular  letter,  voicing  its  own 
supreme  authority  and  at  the  same  time  making  Gentile  Christianity 
permanently  free  from  the  regulations  of  Judaism.  The  verses  15, 
30-35  are  admirably  suited  to  bring  the  book  to  a  close.  The  Gen- 
tiles, represented  by  the  foremost  Gentile  Christian  city,  Antioch, 
receive  their  charter  of  freedom  with  joy;  Judas  and  Silas  return  to 
Jerusalem;  Paul  and  Barnabas  remain  in  Antioch,  "  teaching  and 
preaching,  with  many  others,  the  word  of  the  Lord." 

The  point  of  view  and  purpose  of  the  whole  document  may  be 
described  in  this  way.  A  man  of  Judea,  presumably  of  Jerusalem, 
undertook  to  set  forth  the  main  facts  touching  the  growth  of  the 
Christian  church  from  the  little  band  of  Jews  left  behind  by  Jesus 
to  the  large  and  rapidly  growing  body,  chiefly  Gentile,  whose  bran- 
ches were  in  all  parts  of  the  world.  He  was  a  man  of  catholic  spirit 
and  excellent  literary  ability.  He  wrote  in  Aramaic,  and  with  great 
loyalty  to  the  Holy  City  and  the  Twelve  Apostles,  and  yet  at  the 
same  time  with  genuine  enthusiasm  for  the  mission  to  the  Gentiles 
and  its  foremost  representatives,  especially  Paul.  His  chief  interest 
was  in  the  universal  mission  of  Christianity  (i,  8;  2,  5  ff.;  3,  25; 
7,  48-53;  I0>  i-"i  J8;  ii,  21;  13,  46  ff.;  15,  etc.).  He  was 


THE  RELATION  OF  II  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS  65 

secondarily  interested  to  show  —  what  the  far-seeing  among  the 
Jewish  Christians  of  his  time  must  generally  have  acknowledged  — 
that  although  the  new  faith  was  first  developed,  of  necessity,  among 
the  Jews,  yet  being  rejected  by  the  main  body  of  them  it  passed  out 
of  their  hands.  From  the  very  beginning  of  his  account,  he  had  in 
mind  as  its  central  feature  the  wonderful  transition  from  Jewish  sect 
to  world-religion.  From  the  outset  he  purposed  to  show  how  Anti- 
och  became  the  first  great  Gentile  center  of  Christianity;  his  pride 
in  Antioch  was  of  course  hardly  equal  to  his  pride  in  Jerusalem,  but 
was  very  real  nevertheless.  It  is  a  skillful  arrangement  of  his  ma- 
terial by  which  he  makes  it  all  lead  up,  in  successive  steps,  to  the 
first  great  triumphs  of  the  new  faith  on  foreign  soil,  and  to  the  true 
climax  in  chapter  15.  It  may  be  added,  that  there  is  nothing  in 
Acts  1-15  which  seems  out  of  harmony  with  this  general  purpose. 
There  are  unquestionably  strong  reasons  for  concluding  that  Luke 
has  preserved  for  us,  practically  intact,  the  whole  of  the  Aramaic 
narrative  which  had  come  into  his  hands;  and  perhaps  equally  co- 
gent reasons  for  believing  that  this  document  had  not  been  pieced 
together  from  fragmentary  written  sources,  but  rather  composed 
entire  by  a  single  Judean  narrator. 

From  their  different  points  of  view  Luke  and  the  Judean  narrator 
were  aiming  to  set  forth  precisely  the  same  thing.  Their  main 
premises  and  chief  arguments  were  practically  identical,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  such  a  history  as  this,  and  it  was  therefore  an  easy  matter 
for  the  Hellenist  to  continue  from  the  point  where  the  Jewish  con- 
vert had  left  off.  Their  joint  work  is  truly  typical  of  what  was 
taking  place  at  that  time  on  so  great  a  scale. 

§3.  THE  PROBABLE  DATE  OF  ACTS 

The  foregoing  investigation  has  made  it  possible,  through  the  dem- 
onstration of  the  Aramaic  Document  and  its  translation  by  the 
same  writer  who  composed  its  sequel,  to  establish  a  degree  of 
probability  never  before  attainable  in  regard  to  the  authorship  and 
composition  of  the  book;  and  it  will  readily  be  seen  that  the  ques- 
tion of  dates,  for  Acts  and  the  Third  Gospel,  is  also  considerably 
simplified. 


66  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

Acts  15,  36-28,  31  was  written  by  a  contemporary  and  com- 
panion of  Paul.1  The  writer  seems  to  have  met  the  apostle  first  at 
Troas,  in  the  year  50,*  and  to  have  accompanied  his  party  to  Phi- 
lippi.  On  the  return  of  Paul  to  the  latter  city,  in  the  year  58  or  59, 
Luke  again  joined  the  apostle  and  his  companions,  and  went  with 
them  on  their  journey  to  Jerusalem.  From  this  time  on,  he  seems 
to  have  regarded  himself  as  one  of  Paul's  adherents;  and  after  the 
two  years'  imprisonment  of  the  latter  at  Caesarea  (59-61)  he  accom- 
panied him  on  the  journey  to  Rome,  arriving  in  62. 

Evidence  that  the  account  was  written  not  long  after  the  events 
described  is  also  to  be  found  in  the  occasional  presence  in  the  narra- 
tive of  purely  incidental  details  of  personal  interest,  such  as  might 
naturally  be  inserted  by  one  to  whom  the  occurrences  were  still  fresh 
in  mind,  and  who  was  writing  for  men  to  whom  the  persons  and 
incidents  mentioned  were  also  well  known.  Such  details  are  the 
introduction  of  Mnason  in  21,  16;  the  mention  of  the  "  sign  of  the 
Dioscuri  "  in  28,  n;  the  allusions  to  Jason  (as  a  well-known  per- 
sonage) in  17,  5-9,  and  to  Alexander  in  19,  33.  Hence  also  probably 
the  aujxrrtpuv  and  £K  rov  otttov  iitdvov,  19, 16,  in  the  story  of  the  sons 
of  the  Jew  Sceva 3  —  the  anecdote  being  a  familiar  one.  Other  ex- 
amples will  occur  to  readers  of  the  book.  On  the  other  hand,  it  must 
be  said  that  not  even  the  story  of  the  journey  to  Rome  gives  the 
impression  of  a  record  made  at  the  very  time  of  the  occurrences  de- 
scribed. It  does  not  sound  at  all  like  a  "  journal "  or  "  travel- 
diary,"  but  rather  like  subsequent  recollection  aided  by  the  recollec- 
tion of  others. 

Nothing  can  be  learned  with  certainty  from  the  manner  in  which 
the  book  comes  to  an  end.  This  much,  however,  may  be  said  to  be 
highly  probable:  that  28,  31  formed  the  original  and  intended  close 
of  the  book;  and  that  this  verse  was  written  after  Paul  had  been 
transferred  from  his  "  hired  dwelling  "  to  a  veritable  prison,  and 
before  Luke  had  received  news  of  his  death.  Paul  had  many  friends 

1  There  seems  to  be  no  good  reason  why  the  church  tradition,  that  the  writer  was 
Luke,  should  not  be  retained,  as  certainly  possible  and  perhaps  well  founded. 
1  I  follow  the  chronology  adopted  by  Wendt,  Komm.,  p.  64. 
1  I  can  hardly  believe  that  the  word  dpxteptws  stood  in  the  original  text. 


THE  RELATION  OF  II  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS  67 

and  followers  in  Rome,  and  the  fact  of  his  death  —  or  of  his  release 
from  prison  —  would  almost  certainly  have  become  known  within  a 
short  time.  The  year  64,  then,  may  be  regarded  as  the  most  probable 
date  of  the  writing  of  chapters  16-28.  This  whole  second  half  of  the 
book  could  easily  have  been  written  at  Rome  within  a  few  weeks' 
time,  Luke  having  there  the  aid  of  men  (such  as  Aristarchus,  and 
perhaps  Timothy)  who  had  accompanied  Paul  in  the  journeys  in 
which  he  himself  did  not  participate.  This  hypothesis  at  least  agrees 
with  all  the  known  facts. 

Since  II  Acts  was  written  as  the  sequel  of  I  Acts,  it  is  altogether 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  idea  of  writing  this  history  was  first 
suggested  to  Luke  when  the  Aramaic  Document  came  into  his  hands. 
We  have  no  reason  to  suppose,  but  very  good  reasons  against  sup- 
posing, that  he  had  in  mind  such  a  history  while  he  was  making  his 
journeys  in  company  with  Paul.  If  the  plan  of  writing  it  had  already 
occurred  to  him,  we  may  be  sure  that  he  would  have  made  notes  of  a 
very  different  character  from  the  incidental,  loosely  connected,  and 
often  unimportant  reminiscences  which  now  occupy  so  large  a  part 
of  the  work.  We  may  conjecture  that  the  Document  came  into  his 
hands  either  when  Paul  was  in  prison  at  Cae^area,  during  which  time 
(two  years)  Luke  was  very  likely  in  Palestine,  or  —  even  more 
probably  —  after  his  arrival  in  Rome  in  the  year  62.1  Judging  from 
the  very  cautious  manner  in  which  he  handled  the  Document,  not 
venturing  to  alter  it  or  omit  from  it,  even  when  he  believed  it  to  be 
wrong  (see  above),  it  would  seem  fairly  certain  that  he  did  not  know 
who  its  author  was,  and  had  no  means  of  finding  out.  He  could 
hardly  have  studied  it  in  Palestine,  moreover,  without  becoming 
aware  of  the  true  meaning  of  certain  passages  which  must  have  per- 
plexed him,  such  as  u,  27-30,  and  others,  mentioned  above,  in  which 
the  unfamiliar  Palestinian  idiom  made  trouble  for  him.  The  sup- 
position that  he  found  the  Document  in  Rome  is  the  one  which  best 
suits  the  facts  before  us.  The  Document  was  written  in  Palestine 
after  the  Council  of  the  Apostles  at  Jerusalem  in  the  year  49,  prob- 

1  An  alternative  amounting  to  the  same  thing  is  the  supposition  that  he  secured 
the  Document  before  leaving  Palestine,  but  did  not  decide  to  make  this  use  of  it  until 
after  his  arrival  in  Rome. 


68  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

ably  very  soon  after  that  event  and  under  the  inspiration  of  the 
wonderful  beginning  of  the  work  among  the  Gentiles.  It  is  a  very 
significant  fact  that  its  author  did  not  know  (see  15,  32  f.)  that  Silas 
had  started  on  a  new  missionary  journey  in  company  with  Paul.  A 
man  of  his  interests  and  information  could  not  have  remained  for 
many  months  in  ignorance  of  this  most  important  turn  of  events. 
We  are  accordingly  enabled  to  date  the  Document  with  unusual  pre- 
cision; it  must  have  been  composed  late  in  the  year  49,  or  early  in 
the  year  50. 

In  relation  to  the  Third  Gospel,  the  Book  of  Acts  was  plainly  an 
afterthought.  When  Luke  wrote  his  brief  prologue  to  the  former 
treatise,  he  certainly  did  not  have  in  mind  the  continuation  which 
included  his  own  personal  experiences.1  On  the  other  hand,  in  the 
latter  treatise,  the  extreme  brevity  of  the  address  to  Theophilus, 
without  explanation  or  further  remark,  makes  the  conclusion  practi- 
cally certain  (as  scholars  have  generally  agreed)  that  the  interval 
between  the  two  writings  was  a  short  one.  Now  the  all-important 
feature  of  Luke's  own  labors  in  compiling  his  Gospel  history  (see  my 
Translations  made  from  the  Original  Aramaic  Gospels,  pp.  288-297) 
was  the  searching  out  and  employing  of  "  authentic  "  documents, 
that  is,  of  Palestinian  sources  in  their  original  Semitic  form.  The 
collection  of  such  material  could  only  be  made  in  Palestine,  and 
would  necessarily  occupy  considerable  time.  It  is  certainly  a  strik- 
ing coincidence,  that  a  few  years  before  the  date  which  has  seemed 
most  probable  for  the  composition  of  Acts,  Luke  should  have  made 
an  extended  stay  in  Palestine.  It  is  a  conjecture  which  is  more  than 
merely  plausible,  that  during  the  two  years  (24,  27)  of  Paul's  im- 
prisonment at  Caesarea  Luke  was  collecting,  examining,  and  trans- 
lating the  materials  for  his  Gospel.  We  may  then  venture  the  con- 
clusion, that  the  Third  Gospel  was  written  before  the  year  61, 
probably  in  the  year  60. 

1  The  latter  treatise,  moreover,  could  not  have  been  described  in  the  same  terms  as 
the  former.  In  the  Gospel,  Luke  did  indeed  "  trace  the  course  of  all  things  accurately 
from  the  first,"  with  laborious  comparison  and  criticism  of  authorities  and  incorpora- 
tion of  new  Palestinian  material.  The  Book  of  Acts,  on  the  contrary,  was  not  a  work 
of  research,  nor  even  of  any  considerable  labor.  It  was  merely  the  translation  of  a  single 
document  —  a  lucky  find  —  supplemented  by  a  very  brief  outline  of  Paul's  missionary 
labors,  enlivened  by  miscellaneous  personal  reminiscences. 


THE  RELATION  OF  II  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS  69 

To  the  hypothesis  of  such  an  early  date  for  the  Lukan  writings 
the  advocates  of  a  later  dating  have  been  wont  to  oppose  two 
objections  which,  if  their  validity  could  be  established,  would  be 
truly  fatal.  These  are,  first,  the  supposed  evidence  in  Luke  21, 
20-24  °f  a  date  subsequent  to  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem;  and 
second,  the  alleged  dependence  of  Acts  on  Josephus. 

Those  who  argue  from  the  passage  in  the  Gospel  point  to  the  diver- 
gences from  the  parallel  in  Mark  (13, 14-20).  Thus  Wendt,  Komm., 
46  note,  insists  that  since  Luke  predicts  the  siege  and  destruction  of 
Jerusalem,  and  also  speaks  of  a  period  after  the  catastrophe  during 
which  the  Gentiles  will  triumph  for  a  time  (the  /caipot  eQvuiv),  and 
since  these  things  are  not  in  Mark,  therefore  the  Third  Gospel  must 
have  been  written  after  the  year  70.  Similarly  Wellhausen,  Evan- 
gelium  Lucae,  117  f.,  basing  his  whole  argument  on  the  assumption 
that  the  only  sources  of  Luke  21,  20-24  were  the  passage  in  Mark 
and  the  actual  progress  of  events.  But  may  not  the  author  of  the 
later  passage  also  be  supposed  to  have  known  the  Old  Testament 
scriptures  ?  To  be  sure,  it  must  be  said  that  on  the  sole  basis  of 
Mark  the  prediction  would  have  been  easy  enough.  When  he  speaks 
of  ep?7/xaxns,  foretells  the  frantic  flight  of  the  citizens  to  the  moun- 
tains, and  adds,  that  there  will  be  then  "  such  distress  as  there  has 
not  been  since  the  creation  of  the  world,  and  never  shall  be,"  no  one 
could  possibly  doubt  that  the  capture  of  the  city,  and  its  iprmuais, 
were  foretold.  The  language  in  Luke  is  very  cautious.  Jerusalem 
had  been  "  compassed  with  armies  "  and  captured  by  these  Roman 
invaders  more  than  once  already;  must  not  the  great  final  catas- 
trophe be  incomparably  more  terrible  than  anything  preceding,  even 
surpassing  the  slaughter  and  captivity  in  the  days  of  Nebuchadrez- 
zar ?  So  Mark  had  said.  But  this  is  not  all.  Verse  2  2  in  Luke  must 
not  be  overlooked:  these  calamities  are  to  come  "  so  that  all  things 
which  are  written  may  be  fulfilled."  This  is  a  very  significant  addi- 
tion, and  it  is  not  easy  to  understand  how  it  can  have  been  left  out 
of  account  by  some  of  those  who  have  compared  the  three  Gospels 
at  this  important  point.  The  predictions  in  the  Old  Testament 
were  certainly  explicit  enough.  The  end  of  the  present  age  is 
described  in  Zech.  14,  i  ff. :  "A  day  of  Yahwe  cometh,  when  thy 


70  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

spoil  shall  be  divided  in  the  midst  of  thee.  For  I  will  gather  all 
nations  against  Jerusalem  to  battle;  and  the  city  shall  be  taken,  and 
the  houses  rifled,  and  the  women  ravished;  and  half  the  city  shall  go 
forth  into  captivity."  This  last  phrase  indicates  plainly  enough  the 
interval  between  the  slaughter  and  devastation  and  the  final  triumph 
of  Yahwe  and  his  people,  described  in  verses  3  ff.  So  also  Daniel 
had  prophesied.  The  last  and  most  terrible  beast  "  shall  wear  out 
the  saints  of  the  Most  High  "  (7,  25),  "  and  they  shall  be  given  into 
his  hand  for  a  time  and  times  (/catpcoy)  and  half  a  time."  Dan.  8,  13 
had  declared  that  at  the  time  of  the  DO$  veto,  djuaprta  epTjjuoxreajs 
(the  very  thing  spoken  of  by  Mark),  the  sanctuary  should  be  trampled 
under  foot,  Lk.,  Trarovn&r]  VTTO  eOp&v.  And  again,  in  Dan.  12,  i,  7, 
the  prophet  foretold  the  time  that  must  elapse  between  the  eprjfjutxris, 
when  "  there  shall  be  a  time  of  trouble  such  as  never  was  since  there 
was  a  nation  even  to  that  same  time  "  (vs.  i;  Mark  13,  19),  and 
the  day  of  final  triumph  when  Michael  shall  stand  forth  and  deliver 
the  holy  people.  The  interval  will  be  (vs.  7)  "  a  time,  times  (xaipous), 
and  a  half,"  until  "  they  have  made  an  end  of  breaking  in  pieces  the 
power  of  the  holy  people  ";  that  is,  to  the  end  of  the  /catpot  edi>&t>. 
It  appears,  then,  that  every  particle  of  Luke's  prediction  not  pro- 
vided by  Mark  was  furnished  by  familiar  and  oft-quoted  Old  Testa- 
ment passages.  It  is  therefore  obviously  not  permissible  to  call 
Luke  21,  20-24  a  vaticinium  ex  eventu,  and  it  cannot  be  cited  as 
throwing  light  on  the  date  of  the  Gospel. 

The  argument  for  the  dependence  of  the  Lukan  writings  on  Jo- 
sephus  has  been  set  forth  exhaustively  by  Krenkel,  Josephus  und 
Lukas.  After  examining  his  material,  I  agree  with  those  scholars 
who  find  only  two  of  his  "  correspondences  "  worthy  of  serious  atten- 
tion; namely,  the  Theudas-Judas  passage,  Acts  5,  36  f.,  cf.  Jos., 
Antt.,  xx,  5,  i  f.;  and  the  "  Lysanias  tetrarch  of  Abilene  "  in  Luke  3, 
i,  cf.  Antt.,  xx,  7,  i.  On  these  two  instances  of  agreement  see 
Schmiedel,  Encyclopaedia  Biblica,  articles  "  Judas  of  Galilee,"  "  Ly- 
sanias," and  "  Theudas,"  and  Burkitt,  The  Gospel  History  and  its 
Transmission,  105-110,  both  of  whom  accept  Krenkel's  conclusion; 
also  Wendt,  Komm.,  42  ff.,  who  finds  cogent  evidence  only  in  the 
Theudas-Judas  passage. 


THE  RELATION  OF  II  ACTS  TO  I  ACTS  71 

Josephus  generally  used  written  sources,  and  is  following  such  a 
source  in  Antt.  xx,  5,  i  f.;  see  Holscher,  Quellen  des  Josephus,  69  f. 
In  this  written  authority,  Theudas  "  the  prophet "  and  his  band 
were  described,  under  the  procuratorship  of  Cuspius  Fadus.  Then 
followed  the  account  of  his  successor,  Tiberius  Alexander  (xx,  5,  2). 
The  chapter  telling  of  his  administration  seems  to  have  contained, 
in  the  source:  (i)  a  brief  account  of  the  man  himself,  and  of  the 
family  to  which  he  belonged;  (2)  some  account  of  the  famine  of 
that  time  (Jos.  had  already  described  this,  xx,  2,  5,  in  another  con- 
nection); (3)  the  story  of  the  execution,  by  crucifixion,  of  James 
and  Simon,  the  two  sons  of  "  Judas  of  Galilee."  In  telling  their 
story,  the  narrator  must  of  necessity  have  told  something  about  the 
revolt  led  by  Judas  (Jos.  remarks  that  he  himself  has  told  this 
already,  namely  in  xvii,  10,  5).  The  revolt  was  a  thing  of  very 
slight  importance,  hardly  worthy  of  mention;  but  the  execution  of 
the  two  sons  by  crucifixion  —  imagine  the  horror  it  must  have  aroused 
in  Judea !  —  seems  to  have  been  the  most  striking  event  of  the  procu- 
ratorship of  Tiberius  Alexander.  Any  history  dealing  with  this 
period  would  have  been  pretty  certain  to  mention  Theudas  and 
Judas  at  this  point,  and  in  this  order,  although  the  revolt  under 
Judas  really  happened  much  earlier.  From  some  history  of  the  kind, 
in  which  the  facts  were  not  clearly  stated,  the  author  of  Luke's 
Aramaic  source  obtained  his  wrong  impression  of  the  order  of  events. 
He  could  not  easily  have  obtained  it  from  the  Antiquities,  for  the 
correct  statement  is  given  there  very  plainly  and  briefly;  and  that 
this  was  not  his  source,  is  shown  by  the  number,  "  four  hundred,"  in 
Acts  5,  36.  Josephus  exaggerates,  as  usual,  with  his  r6v  Tr\ei<rTov 
&X^ov.  The  writer  in  Acts,  who  is  not  at  all  inclined  toward  under- 
statement, certainly  did  not  get  his  number,  400,  nor  his  impression 
of  the  size  of  the  disturbance,  from  the  Antiquities,  but  from  an  older 
account. 

Luke's  statement  in  his  Gospel,  3,  i,  that  "  in  the  fifteenth  year 
of  the  reign  of  Tiberius  Caesar,"  etc.,  Lysanias  was  tetrarch  of 
Abilene,  is  a  mistake,  since  the  tetrarch  of  that  name  was  executed 
by  Mark  Antony  in  the  year  36  B.C.  Josephus,  Antt.  xx,  7,  i,  in 
telling  of  the  redistribution  of  Palestinian  provinces  by  Claudius  in 


72  THE  COMPOSITION  AND  DATE  OF  ACTS 

the  twelfth  year  of  his  reign,  says  that  Agrippa  received  the  tet- 
rarchy  of  Philip,  and  Batanea,  also  Trachonitis  with  Abila,  "which 
last  had  been  the  tetrarchy  of  Lysanias."  Does  not  this  show  de- 
pendence of  Luke  on  Josephus  ? 

We  know  that  long  after  the  death  of  Lysanias  the  tetrarchy  of 
Abila  continued  to  be  called  by  his  name.  See  for  example  Josephus, 
Bell.  Jud.,  ii,  n,  5  (which  is  the  parallel  to  Antt.,  xx,  7,  i):  ertpav 
(3a<Ti\dav  ri]v  Avvaviov  KaXovncvriv.  If  the  province  was  "so-called," 
it  is  hardly  necessary  to  argue  further;  but  a  few  more  facts  may 
be  noted.  The  Antt.  passage  is  entirely  independent  of  that  in 
the  Wars,  belonging  to  a  different  context,  and  from  a  different 
source  —  the  same  source,  according  to  Holscher,  op.  cit.,  as  that 
from  which  the  Theudas- Judas  passage  was  derived.  Again,  we 
read  in  Antt.,  xix,  5,  i:  "A^i\av  8e  rrjv  Avvaviov  .  .  .  7rpocreri0ei 
K.T.I.;  and  Antt.,  xviii,  6,  10  tells  how  Agrippa  was  given  the  Abi- 
lene, and  calls  it  simply  rty  hvaaviov  Terpapxiw.  Holscher,  64  f., 
pronounces  the  source  here  different  from  either  of  the  others  above 
referred  to.  There  is  no  need,  then,  to  ask  where  Luke  got  his 
"  Tetrarchy  of  Lysanias."  He  might  have  found  it  in  any  source  he 
laid  his  hand  on,  since  it  was  the  ordinary  way  of  speaking  of  the 
district  of  Abila;  which,  it  may  be  added,  would  be  pretty  certain 
to  appear  by  the  side  of  Trachonitis  in  any  account  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  these  provinces.  It  is  very  natural  that  Luke  should  have 
been  misled. 

The  general  conclusion  may  therefore  be  ventured,  that  in  the 
facts  now  known  to  us  there  is  nothing  opposed  to  the  results 
reached  above  in  regard  to  the  composition  and  dating  of  Acts. 


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